When Deysi Gonzalez found a funny-looking German shepherd with short, stumpy legs in her neighborhood park in May, she didn’t expect he would help turn her life around.

A mother of three, Gonzalez felt like her life had become a cycle of cleaning and cooking. She spent most of her time at her apartment in Pleasanton. The purpose she had felt in her youth seemed to have faded away, and she realized she was falling into a deep depression.

“Sometimes I didn’t want to get up from bed in the morning,” Gonzalez said. “I felt so useless.”

That day at the park in May, Gonzalez realized the friendly dog was alone. The dog followed Gonzalez home, where she fed him a bowl of food — then two, then four. Gonzalez contacted Animal Control to see if the dog was microchipped and put up posters around town, searching for the dog’s owners. Eventually, it became clear that the dog, who the family fell in love with and began calling Max, didn’t have one.

But there was one problem. Gonzalez was short on cash, and couldn’t afford to have Max neutered. She found herself in a situation that many low-income families face: forced to make a financial decision that could push them to give up pets they have grown to love. It’s exactly the gap that Paws In Need, a Tri-Valley based nonprofit, aims to fill.

“What we wanted to do was address a public need, people who are financially challenged,” said Leslie Silberman, a board member at the organization. “People who have to decide if they have to euthanize the animal because they can’t spay it, can’t neuter it, can’t get some emergency treatment.”

Paws In Need has served thousands of animals over its 10-year existence — Max being one of them. Through donations and grants, the nonprofit is able to provide logistical support, transportation and financial assistance to help families get their animal the procedure it needs.

“People say he’s lucky, but we’re lucky to have him in our family,” Gonzalez said.