On the Road to Recovery

THEN

NOW

A Thankful Duke Gives a Smile

DUKE UPDATES

1/24/12
Sadly, Duke lost his life to lung cancer earlier this week.  Dave and Cory, Duke's human family, will greatly miss this special dog.  ARF is eternally grateful to everyone who prayed, donated, or otherwise helped with his recovery 3 years ago.  Duke was an amazing dog who will always be remembered.


01/24/10
Duke has officially been adopted!  His recovery has been amazing...we are so thankful to everyone who helped us help Duke!

07/30/09
To those who are still following our progress with Duke, you will be happy to know he has been successfully neutered and is doing quite well.  He had a little bit of a hard time recovering from the surgery (due to his age), but is back to his normal, loving, silly self. He has managed to put on a few more healthy pounds and most of of his fur has grown back. He was quite happy to have many visitors two weeks ago at ARF's spay/neuter clinic and absorbed as much love as would be given to him.  His adoption time has yet to be determined.  But stay tuned....


05/20/09
I had the pleasure of visiting our dear Duke this past weekend.  I could hear his excited wimpers from the other room as I entered the house.  As soon as I turned the corner, he lit up.  He is so full of life now and you can see the happiness in his eyes.  His wounds are healed with very little scars that are becoming a distant memory as his fur grows back.  A total lover, I'm convinced that he couldn't hurt a fly if he tried.  A true sweetheart.  Healthy as can be and loving life on the inside - of the house that is.  ~~ Jen, the webmaster ~~

04/28/09 
Yesterday Duke got a clean bill of health - the holes are closed and healed with no sign of any accumulating infection around them. He is now up to 90.8# (yeah!)  That is what I've been waiting for - the beginning of the weight gain. His hair growing back now because none grew as long as the drains were open. He is eating Beneful dry food (with a foil package of Pedigree chicken mixed in)  We're pretty proud of him.  He still gets ham for treats, though.

04/15/09
Duke had to go back for another check-up today.  As a precautionary measure, and to ready him for the coming season, we had him tested for heartworm and Lymes. Heartworm negative, but a very slight-positive for Lymes. The decision was made to vaccinate for that, but also put him on a month of Doxycycline (treatment for Lymes) just to be on the VERY safe side.  Dr. Bardelmeier just figures, as do we all, that Duke has come too far to take any chances with anything at this point.  He's still having a very small amount of drainage, so this antibiotic will continue to help that along also.  He wants me to continue to clean and keep open the drain areas, actually to kind of squeeze around the openings to encourage any small amounts of infection to drain.  He wasn't treated with Frontline today because the openings in his skin would break the travel of the medication throughout his entire skin, so he was fitted with a new kind of tick repellent collar which Dr. Bardelmeier says is very effective.  This is just to protect him until he is healed.  We will be taking him back for another check on April 27th