10/14/2026
š¾ Meet Meatball! ā¤ļø
On September 28th, our former neighbors found a stray dog wandering around the park near their house. They were leaving to go out of town the next morning, so they brought him over to us, and weāve had him ever since.
We immediately had him scanned for a microchip, which he didnāt have, and started the process of trying to locate his family. With our experience in dog rescue and fostering, weāre very familiar with the steps involved in reuniting lost pets with their owners. Weāve filed the appropriate found-dog reports, notified the proper agencies, posted on lost pet sites and social media, and followed all the recommended steps to find his family, but so far nobody has come forward.
The strange thing is that he appears to have been very well cared for. His teeth were brushed, his nails were trimmed, and he was in pretty good shape overall, so we really have no idea what happened or how he ended up wandering around the park.
In the meantime, weāve started calling him Meatball! ā¤ļø Weāve also learned that he was born deaf, but he responds really well to hand signals and has been fitting in with our pack surprisingly well. Heās already getting comfortable with our routines and seems to be making himself right at home!
Last week we took him to the vet for a full checkup and senior blood panel. We estimate heās somewhere between 9 and 11 years old, and aside from some early cataracts and a few kidney values that were a little off, heās actually pretty healthy! The kidney values could be related to his time as a stray, so weāll continue to keep an eye on those.
He also has a bit of an interesting medical history. At some point, he had surgery to reroute his urinary tract, so he now pees through an opening near his leg instead of the usual way. We have no idea what originally caused him to need that procedure, but he doesnāt have any current issues related to it, so whatever they did seems to have worked!
Weāve spent the last couple of weeks getting to know him, watching him settle in, and continuing to look for his family. Given his age, the fact that heās completely deaf, and how well heās doing with our other dogs, weāve decided that heās going to stay right here with us.
If his family is found, weāll be happy to reunite them, but if not, heāll spend the rest of his days here at Rowell Ranch.
We certainly werenāt looking to add another dog to the pack, but apparently Meatball had other plans! šā¤ļø
Welcome to Rowell Ranch, Meatball! š¾
And of course, if anyone recognizes him or knows where he belongs, please reach out. Weād still love to find out where he came from!
