Testimonials for Duncan

A lady named Mary fed them & tried to get help to capture them. Trapper, Melisa York trapped one, turned it into animal control & they killed it. The rest of the puppy siblings were contained & Mary kept them. But one little booger would never go into a trap.

Mary eventually moved & always worried if he'd ever get food. This is a low-income neighborhood so chances of anyone feeding him are slim. He lived thru unbearable summer heat, torrential monsoon downpours every summer day, tornadoes & the worst hurricane to ever hit Florida in September, Hurricane Ian by hiding under an abandoned trailer.

That vacant lot is what he called "home". He layed there 24/7. Just before Christmas 2022 Mary made another attempt at finding help. She found somebody named Sheila Babcock Anderson who would back the basic vetting of the dog & Mary decided she would take the dog in. She started feeding him again in the lot. She couldnt stand to see him there anymore. She reached out to trappers, Maranda Wyatt & Tawja Paredes to help & since there was financial backing & a place for the dog to go, they agreed to trap. December 21st they used a large walk-in trap & trapped him. It wasn’t pretty. He went insane trying to escape & it was stressful & traumatizing for him. This feral little dog didn't realize a group of crazy ladies were trying to help him.

Maranda & Tawja immediately drove him to Viscaya Prado Animal Hospital. He tested positive for Heartworm disease. They neutered him & he was released the next evening.

He went to Marandas house to stay & start slow kill heartworm treatment. He was extremely lethargic, would not eat & was dehydrated but he did drink water. We knew something more was very wrong.

2 Days Later on Christmas Eve he started peeing straight blood so Maranda rushed him to Blue Pearl where Mary ended staying with him for 13 hours. They did full blood panels & found that he was in "Cavel Syndrome" which is the end of the life stage for heartworm disease.

This means he was at the end of stage four Heartworm disease before he was trapped but the trauma of the trapping-paired with the neuter anesthesia sent him into Cavel Syndrome.

There are two options when it is at this point.

1) Extremely expensive surgery at a cardiologist to remove the worms
2) Euthanasia.

Rescuers rallied together. Euthanasia wasn’t on the table since he had never had a chance at living a real life. He stayed at Marandas house for 8 days where our good friend & well-known veterinarian, Megan Davis guided Maranda step by step on a medical plan for him since neither of the other vets did so. Megan spent countless hours thru Christmas Eve & Christmas Day & the following week guiding her. Maranda had to use a syringe to feed him dissolved prednisone & doxycycline & liquified baby food just to get anything down him because he couldn’t eat. He was on the brink of death. Dr Davis gave him a less than 5% chance of survival after reading the radiology reports. But none of us had 8k for the surgery.

Erika Elmore began relentlessly harassing Maranda about the Heartworm removal surgery. She had called around & done all of the legwork & research on the cardiologist. Knowing it's a terribly irresponsible financial decision being a 1-income household, Erika could not let this street dog die in vain & still went out on a limb & take out credit cards to get this surgery. On December 30th, Maranda met Erika & Erika took Diago down to the cardiologist. She arrived at 9:00 a.m. & they told her that he had a very low chance of surviving until 5:00 p.m. which was the soonest they could do the risky surgery. After she left they called her stating that Diago had such severe anemia that he needed a blood transfusion & it was an additional $1,000.

By miracle, Diago made it until 5:00 p.m. & it was a successful surgery. They ended up suctioning 36 horrific worms out of his little heart which was blockage, resulting in his end of life heart failure. We were all on pins & needles BUT HE MADE IT.

Hes on the road to recovery now & there will still be future follow up visits so we have to rally together as a community & raise funds to pay for this. Heartworm disease is no joke. This street dog made it by a miracle & a team of crazy dog ladies & vets who pulled together but now we have to help get these bills paid. Anything you can donate, will go toward this bill for the street dog named Diago who will now live the life that he deserves.

Erika E