When former Mrs. Bakersfield 2020, Leslie Aldridge’s husband, Daron, called her about a lost dog found outside his work on the East side of Bakersfield, she knew she had to act. Upon arrival, she found an elderly dog patiently waiting by his office door, and she affectionately named him Gus because she said, “He looked like a Gus to me.” This encounter would end up changing not only Gus’s life but Leslie’s as well.

June is a special pet month celebrated as National Foster a Pet Month, started by Petco Love in 2019, and the American Humane Society’s 47th Annual National Adopt a Cat Month. The height of kitten season, this month sees more litters in the shelters, so the need for loving homes also increases.

Leslie and Daron recently welcomed their first baby, Poppy, age 14 months, via IVF after 10 years of infertility. During this challenging time, Leslie found happiness and purpose in helping many dogs like Gus.

The Aldridge family includes three chihuahuas they rescued named Archie, Bear, and Lady. Bear was adopted at the Bakersfield SPCA, Lady was found by a friend in an alley in Oildale, and Archie was hiding in the bushes near Daron’s work, badly hurt with a severed arm. The vet fixed him up, and Leslie now calls him the “wonder dog” because even with three limbs, she says he’s faster and can even jump higher than her other dogs.

In 2021, when she found Gus, she knew she couldn’t adopt this Labrador/Retriever mix, but she also knew, because of his age, he would have a harder time finding a home from a local shelter and would most likely face euthanasia. She took him to the vet to look for a microchip, to no avail. She put flyers up around the neighborhood and posted his picture on multiple social media sites, but no one came forward. Leslie took him home and started researching senior dog facilities.

She miraculously found Camp Golden Years in Dewey, Arizona, run by Joel Rockey, a veteran, who helps rescue older dogs so they can complete their final mission. His motto is to help them “to love and to be loved by a family of their very own until their very last day.” After talking to Joel, she knew this was the perfect place for Gus, and she was ready to make the eight-hour drive to drop him off.

During her drive to Arizona, Leslie says, “Gus was very unsettled, he wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t go to the bathroom, wouldn’t sit down, but when I got him out there [Camp Golden Years] all these senior dogs came out and immediately greeted him and he settled right in. Seeing this made the drive so worth it.”

Thanks to Leslie and Joel, Gus found his forever home with a Camp Golden Years volunteer named Beth. Even though Leslie knew she couldn’t adopt Gus, she had fallen in love with him and knew she had to make sure he was okay. “He got his forever home,” she says. “It doesn’t matter how much longer he had to live; at least he felt loved, and it was a really neat experience to see him so accepted by all the senior dogs.”

When Leslie ran for Mrs. California in 2022, where she made it into the top 10, her platform was bringing awareness to animal abuse and neglect. She created “Hot Dog” kits for people to carry in their cars, which included water, food, leashes, and a step-by-step list of what to do if they found a dog wandering alone or saw a dog in need of aid in the triple-digit heat. Leslie also encourages owners to be responsible and chip their dogs and keep a collar on them with emergency contact information.

For more information, please visit www.bakersfieldspca.org, www.kerncountyanimalservices.org, and www.campgoldenyears.org.