Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue, Inc.

Duncan is an incredibly sweet and loving, 1.5 year old, Merle male with natural ears. He was seized by animal control from his former owners due to neglect and cruelty. The nice people at Helping Hands Animal Shelter in Topeka, Kansas, called RMGDRI immediately to ask for our help. Duncan scored 0.5 on the overal body test at the shelter because he was so severely malnourished and only weighed 67 lbs. He also tested positive for heartworm and clearly needed a lot of TLC and time to recover in a home environment from the life of neglect he had endured previously.

Sunday, October 29th

Just a few hours after we put a desperate call out to our group of volunteers asking for an emergency transport for this sweet boy, the transport was covered. One of our volunteers by the name of Laura drove all the way from Denver to Topeka because we knew that time was of the essence. Everyone at the shelter had fallen in love with this gentle giant and was overcome with joy to see him go to people who understood the breed and would get him the care he so desperately needed. During the trip back to Colorado, Duncan was a very good boy. Laura quickly realized that he was infested with fleas and he patiently let her pick them off him one by one. She and Duncan did not arrive back home until the middle of the night, so he spent the night in her apartment until he could go to his foster home the next day.

Monday, October 30th

Duncan's foster mom, Bree, was very excited to finally meet him and apalled at the skin and bones excuse for a Dane who arrived. You can see absolutely every rib, back bone, and hip in his body and he doesn't have an ounce of fat on him. He has all sorts of pressure sores and skin tags from lying on concrete and sleeping outdoors. His body has endured horrible conditions and is in desperate need of a comfy dog bed and indoor living. Introductions with the other dogs in his foster home went extremely well. He met the dogs, both big and small, with a tail wag and no sign of aggression. Duncan explored his new digs and reluctantly went outside to the backyard as if he was scared he was going to be locked outside. His mom fed him and he quickly ate 1 cup of dried and canned food mixed together. After he ate, he still acted starved and scavenged every counter top, shelf, and table in hopes of finding something else to eat. He is so thin that we are going to have to monitor his meals and feed him very small amounts every couple of hours until we can build up his capacity. The collar that his foster mom put on him was a puppy collar because his neck is so thin. When you pet him, all you feel are his bones. He finally curled up in relief on a giant dog bed into a tiny ball of bones. Duncan will be headed to the vet first thing in the morning for a thorough exam to determine a plan of action for his treatment. We are in love already with his gentle spirit and brave attitude and can't wait to see him fat and healthy someday very soon!

Tuesday, October 31st

AM Report

Dr. Landry could hardly believe what he saw when Duncan walked through the doors at his hospital. Like the rest of us, he was simply blown away at how incredibly cruel and horrible people can be and said that this was one of the worst cases of malnutrition he has ever seen. He thoroughly examined Duncan and was surprised at how alert he is, considering his condition. His heart sounds good and he weighed in at 70 lbs. He needs to put on at least 15 lbs before we can even think about treating the heartworm.

Dr. Rob sent Bree home with Betadine to soak his feet and wounds with and Rimadyl for the pain. His body cannot handle antibiotics at this point and his biggest fear is bloat with a dog like Duncan. He prescribed Metoclopraminde which will help break up the food and assist in digestion and recommended watching him very closely after each meal for any signs of bloat. We will be feeding him mostly wet canned food for now and feeding him every 2 hours to help him slowly start to put on some much needed weight.

PM Report

Duncan had his first bath tonight night. Bree and Lindsay were able to easily lift him in the tub because he weighs next to nothing. At first he wasn't real sure about the water, but as soon as he realized that a massage was part of the deal, he just stood there and let us run our hands all over his bony body with shampoo. After the bath we covered him with a blanket and once he was dry we soaked his sores in Betadine to keep them clean and avoid further infection. The final step was frontline to treat the fleas and he was tuckered out for the night after all of his pampering.

November 2, 2006

Yesterday we were contacted by a woman who thought that Duncan was one of two severely neglected and starving Danes whom she spotted near the Great Dane Nationals held in Topeka. However, today, we spoke to Animal Control Officer Trickett who was the one who seized Duncan from his home. Duncan was apparently across town from the location in the story, tethered to a pole with a chain. The person who called him in works in law enforcement and was off duty at the time, but called saying he had just seen the skinniest dog of his life. He was alone and there was not a second Dane, but Animal Control is looking into the other situation to see if they can locate the other dogs from the previous report who obviously need our help as well!

As far as Duncan's owners goes, a ticket was issued to the owners so AC will see them in court. The end result will be entirely at the discretion of the judge after hearing testimony and operating within the guidelines for cruelty.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so the ACO will be forwarding our web site to the city attorney prosecuting this case in hopes that it will influence the court's ruling.

November 7, 2006

Duncan is coming out of his shell more and more every day and he continues to gain strength and courage. His meal quantities have been increased to 2 cups per meal and we continue to feed him every couple of hours. We will hopefully get him weighed sometime this week to see how much he has gained so far.

Due to the fact that he is eating so much, his foster mom's biggest challenge of the moment is potty training. Unfortunately, what goes in must also come out and he is having accidents in the house and in his crate constantly, despite the fact that he goes outside out very regularly. He is getting a lot of wet food which has more moisture and means more urine.

At this point, Duncan doesn't know how to hold any of it, so he just goes when he feels like it. Due to the fact that he was tied up and forced to go to the bathroom in his own 'den' previously, he could care less where he goes (in his crate or in the house) because he doesn't know any better. This problem is just as much physical/mental as it is behavioral, so we are working closely with our behaviorist, Kari Bastyr, on a treatment plan to get him back on track.

She has recommended we make his crate as small as possible. When someone is at home, he should spend 10 minutes in his crate 'holding it', then go directly outside on a leash for 2 minutes to go potty. She wants us to walk him around the yard saying 'go potty' (getting him moving can increase the likelihood that his bowels will move). If he goes potty he gets praise and treat and then he gets 10 minutes out of his crate to play or eat or whatever. Duncan has to be tethered to someone with the leash on during his entire free time. When that 10 minutes is up, he will need to go back in his crate for 10 minutes to hold it longer. Then he gets to go outside on a leash for 2 minutes to try again. Anytime he does not go outside in the allotted 2 minutes, he goes back in his crate for 5-10 minutes and then directly back outside on the leash. This method works really really well, even for adult dogs. The key is that it's not just about teaching him to make a connection to going potty outside and not inside, but also that all the time he spends outside of his crate is contingent upon him going potty outside. Kari believes that Duncan has been so shut down mentally that he has to make the connection of 'being good' and 'being bad' with natural consequences (food/play/attention vs. isolation in the crate).

On another note, Duncan had a present waiting for him in the mail yesterday from one of our volunteers. She sent him a box full of toys and nylabones. You can tell that toys are something very new to him and he wasn't sure what to do with them. We are fairly sure he was trying to eat them as you can see in the attached photos(not that you can blame him!).

November 13, 2006

This week, Duncan finally graduated out of his puppy collar and into a big boy collar! He happily trotted around the house after his foster mom put it on him and told him he was a good boy for growing bigger.

Duncan is slowly making progress with the potty training. It has been frustrating and challenging for his foster mom, but our behaviorist is working closely with Bree and assures us that he is on the right track.

We took him to get weighed today and were very dismayed to find that he had only gained 1 pound since his first vet visit. After speaking with our vet, he is not concerned and said that we have to be patient because he is battling a variety of issues which are all fighting against his ability to gain weight. The heartworm and other intestinal parasites are keeping him from being able to absorb his food properly, so we will be getting him to the vet again this week for another deworming and to take in a stool sample so that he can check for other potential issues that might be slowing the absorption of food. We are going to switch his food to another high caloric food with a soluble fiber source and will be adding more digesting enzymes in addition to the probiotics we are already supplementing his diet with. Duncan continues to down every single meal and his appetite is wonderful, so we are hoping that he can start to put on some weight soon!

November 21, 2006

Bree took Duncan back to see Dr. Landry yesterday because we have been really worried about him. He has been extremely lethargic lately and is losing interest in food. He had actually lost a lb since he came into rescue and weighed in at 69 lbs. His gums were completely white and once again, Dr. Landry was shocked that he was even alive in his condition.

He put him on IV fluids immediately and Duncan was nice enough to provide Dr. Rob with a fresh fecal sample in his office. He sent the fecal away for more tests to make sure that there isn't more than just the whip worms we are already dealing with. The test revealed no more whip worms, so that is some good news!

Dr. Landry decided to keep him overnight at the hospital and they ran more blood tests today. His protein levels continue to decrease. He is going to keep him overnight tonight as well and run more tests in the morning.

There are basically 3-4 primary diagnosis that he is trying to rule out: Enzymatic Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI), Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Pancreatitis, or some other primary GI Disease. He also said it is clear Duncan has some sort of "protein losing interopathy".

EPI is a disease where the body does not produce enough pancreatic digestive enzymes which causes maldigestion or malabsorption of important nutrients. In order to manage EPI, you supplement each meal with pancreatic enzyme extracts and feed a highly digestible diet and initially give the dog an antibiotic to control small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, so it is certainly manageable if this is what Duncan is suffering from. Dr. Rob is a bit confused, however, because typically protein levels are not affected if you have EPI, so more tests need to be done to properly diagnose.

Dr. Landry said for the volume/frequency of his stools, there is definitely a small bowel disease. He has started him on steroid therapy on the off chance that this is inflammatory bowel disease, but he will not start the digestive enzymes at this point because it can falsely affect the blood tests for EPI.

The bottom line is that with the amount of food that Duncan is eating, he should not be weighing less now than when he came in, so Dr. Landry is extremely concerned. He is also worried because Duncan is obviously not a candidate for surgery at this stage. We are all keeping our fingers crossed that we can determine the underlying medical cause for Duncan's inability to put on weight soon so that we can get him back on the right track as quickly as possible!

November 23, 2006

Duncan was released from TLC Hospital yesterday and Dr. Landry is quite pleased with his progress. He is up to 74 lbs and on a long list of drugs including 20 mg Prednasone 2 x day, 500 mg of Metronidazole 2 x day, 3 Pancreatic Enzyme 15 minutes before meals, and 10 mg Metoclopamide 2 x day. We are still waiting on the test results, but Duncan was full of energy and happy to be home!

November 28, 2006

We finally got the test results back, and Duncan was diagnosed with EPI.

What this means to Duncan is that we have started to wean him off the steroids. The digestive enzymes, however, will be something he has to take for the rest of his life. Duncan loves to take his pills in a ball of peanut butter, so we find it hard to believe he will be upset that he has to endure that kind of torture for the rest of his life!

His personality continues to emerge. He is very attached to his foster mom and her crew. It doesn't take much to elicit a fury of tail wagging from him. He loves to have his face scratched, and his favorite past-time, aside from knocking over the trash can, is sleeping on the couch. If there isn't room for him, he will pace, nudge the other dogs with his nose, and if no one will move, he contorts his body so he can fit in Bree's lap. He is so boney that it isn't very comfortable for her, but he is so sweet that she lets him!

Potty training is much better, but he still has a hard time making it all night. Santa just bought the entire household a doggie door, which will allow him the ability to go outside whenever he needs to!

All in all this has been a tiring journey so far, but well worth it! We are making good progress with Duncan and he continues to amaze us all.

December 5, 2006

Duncan has gained 5 lbs in a week and a half, and is up to 77.8 lbs!

He does a corneal ulcer in his right eye that his foster mom will be treating with both an eye drop and and a gel. To make sure it doesn't continue to grow, he will go back on Friday for a re-check. If worse comes to worse, Dr Landry can do a simple procedure where he will tack down the lower eye lid to aleviate the irritation. He is now also on Benadryl to help with the itching because his right eye is swollen from it.

Duncan also continues to come out of his shell and is finally acting like an adolescent should and getting into trouble on a regular basis! He likes to talk back to his foster mom when she asks him to do something and will run away from her with his tail wagging because he thinks it is so much fun to taunt her. He also decided that he couldn't wait until Christmas and kindly unwrapped some gifts to see if he could find anything good. We of course think it is somewhat comical, but we are starting to work on teaching him manners now that he is feeling better.

December 28, 2006

Duncan weighed in at 77.8 lbs today, down a bit from his last weigh in, which we attribute to his anxiety and lack of appetite while his foster mom was on vacation over Christmas. He is eating 20-26 cups of food a day, split into a minimum of 4 meals. He loves meal time, and will twirl around in excitement. If he does not think his foster mom is moving at a pace he finds acceptable, he will bark and run between his food dish and the kitchen.

Duncan is crate trained and, after a very labor intensive 72 hours devoted to nothing but potty training, he is house broken too! He occasionally will have an accident, but not often. He is slowly starting to play, but his foster mom Bree keeps a close on him and keeps the interaction short because Duncan is still having a hard time understanding the intentions of his clumsy play buddy, Zach. He has started to let Zach chew on his legs and nibble at his face, but if there is any sort of major contact, Duncan startles easily and will react defensively since he doesn't completely understand what playing is all about yet.

His foster mom continues to work on commands and they have nightly sessions to work on the command “Gentle” when taking treats or food. This will probably be an ever evolving project, but he is leaps and bounds ahead of where he was the first night when Bree had to throw the treat onto the ground to avoid getting her fingers bitten in the process.

Dunkie is fine with all dogs, but he does need slow introductions with larger dogs. As to be expected, he is somewhat insecure and defensive and is not quite sure what to make of new friends at first. He loves his housemates and even ran to the defense of his grouchy Cocker Spaniel foster sister when he felt she was being threatened by a visiting Dane. He makes a funny face and opens his mouth very wide and will make the strangest noise! We call these his “E.T” moments!

The last 2 weeks have been devoted to Behavior Modification and consequences. After speaking with behaviorist Kari Bastyr, Bree has implemented the policy of “100% consistency, 100% of the time!”, which was much harder on Bree than Duncan! Being an adolescent male, coupled with the fact he has never had any expectations set for him, if given an inch he will happily take a mile. Nevertheless, Dunkie has responded wonderfully to the new rules of the house. He is stubborn, which has resulted in a few ‘old fashion standoffs’ between Bree and Duncan, but he will comply once he knows you mean business.

The second part to the consistency is the consequence when Duncan misbehaves. As with potty training, Kari recommended “time outs” since Duncan dislikes being away from his foster mom and other dogs. While using a crate if perfectly acceptable, this was not a good solution for Dunkie since it took such a long time for him to be comfortable in his crate. Not wanting to undo any of the hard work she put into crating, Bree has learned that isolation in 2 minute increments in the backyard works the best. If isolated in a bedroom, he will open the closet door and empty it for her, happy as a clam!

Duncan has come a long way, but his journey is far from over. He will be undergoing surgery today at TLC Animal Hospital. They will be neutering him and removing part of his tail due to an ongoing case of happy tail which has become serious enough to require amputation. He has become a faithful companion, but will need a very patient and loving forever home who is willing to continue to work with him and love him unconditionally!

January 12, 2007

Duncan weighed in at a whopping 87 lbs today! That makes for a total of 20 lbs gained since he first came into rescue. While this may not seem like much for being here for almost 10 weeks, but Bree and Dunkie have fought for every last ounce and we are so happy to see his gains!

Dunkie's newest favorite activity is going for walks. As soon as Bree gets out his coat, he will run to the door and freeze like a statue, not blinking and just staring forward. He will not move a muscle until his coat is completely velcroed and ready to go!

As you can imagine Duncan had no leash manners, and is shockingly strong for his small size. Since Bree could not use a gentle leader in the beginning due to his corneal ulcer, Kari recommended to leash him and the instant he began to pull to turn and go in the opposite direction. This method provided some comic relief for Bree's neighbors because for the first few days it was so bad that they never made it past her own house, just walking back and forth!

We are happy to report that Duncan now enjoys a nightly walk with his Dane foster brothers, Zach and Judge. Bree uses the command "with me" and a gentle leader and it is now Judge who is the trouble maker on their walks!

As with any young Dane, Duncan has become quite a chewer and cannot be left alone with a closet full of shoes! His personal favorite material is suede. It is very important to have chew toys around the house to redirect his behavior.

He is also playing more now, although he is still most comfortable playing with humans at this point. He loves for Bree to sit on the ground so he can run around her biting at imaginary flies and nudging her with his nose! After a few minutes, he will collapse into her lap to snuggle!

Dunkie is at TLC now for the next 3 days, being treated for heartworm. We are happy to announce that he is now available for adoption when the right family comes along!

February 2, 2007

Duncan went to his forever home with Michael & Susan in Littleton. He will be the only child for now so that they can focus on getting him adjusted, but they hope to eventually bring home an Akita puppy to keep him company. His new parents are very committed to training and have a ton of love to give this very special boy! They had a new collar and name tag for him and they are going to keep Duncan as his name. They both took Monday off work so they could have a 3 day weekend with Dunkie and take him to see Dr Landry where they will continue his vet care. Michael & Susan have promised to keep us all updated and send lots of pictures!