Minnie is a five year old dark-eyed-white girl with obvious adrenal disease.  She arrived from the Titusville rescue terribly emaciated and dehydrated and seemed to be scared of everything around her.  She also has hypoglycemia indicating probable pancreas cancer (insulinoma).  Her blood glucose levels at a five hour fast are only 40mg/dL.

Initially she was not eating and was refusing "chicken gravy" feedings.  After alot of encouragement and small doses of Valium prior to meals she began accepting the gravy.  She now willingly eats a good portion of chicken gravy three times a day without the Valium.  She has dark stools so I am pre-treating her with Pepcid AC Complete prior to meals.

Minnie is putting on weight and her energy levels are markedly improving.  Her attitude is also improving and she seems to enjoy her daily outings and snuggle times.  She doesn't appear to be a good surgery candidate but she will be returning to Dr. Vargas soon for another exam and evaluation before starting her on Lupron for her adrenal disease and possibly Prednisone to help stabilize her blood sugar levels.

Guinness is a very sweet five year old Cinnamon boy who came in from a nice person from Cape Coral who had rescued him.  Guinness thinks he's a dog because his was raised with dogs.  He also has a stronger-than-normal body odor and significant hair loss, both probably due to adrenal disease.

Guinness has visited our ferret-wise veterinarian, Dr. Mitsie Vargas at the Orchid Springs Animal  who concurred that he most likely has adrenal disease. 

Guinness underwent adrenal surgery on August 1st.  Doctor Vargas said his right adrenal gland was huge (about 1/2"dia) and very lumpy.  His right adrenal was also affected but was small and there were two cancer nodules on his pancreas.  His liver and everything else looked fine.  She sutured off the blood supply and then thoroughly froze the left gland and then froze the right.  She did this so as not to spread the cancer.  She was able to remove the nodules from his pancreas without disturbing things too much.  This appears to be a metastatic form of cancer so his long term prognosis isn't all that great but hopefully we have given him a year or two more. 

Guinness also had very bad gingivitis so she cleaned his teeth and scaled under the gum line.  One rear molar's gum was very bad and she normally removes teeth like this but she said she thinks she was able to deep scale it and hopefully the gums will reattach

Guinness is very sweet and friendly to humans but, due to his raging hormones, has some minor dominance issues with some of the fuzzies here at Dookie's.  We're hopeful the adrenal surgery will calm him down and extend the life of this sweet little boy for at least a couple more years.

Sarge is an eleven month old sable boy who was rescued from a local family with his cage mate, Gunny.  Sarge had an inflamed, oozing rash on his ears/head and several areas of his chest, arms, legs and abdomen.  Gunny appears to be unaffected.  We immediately took Sarge to our ferret-wise veterinarian, Dr. Mitsie Vargas who determined that he had a raging bacterial infection.  We sedated him and gave him a medicated scrub down followed by antibiotics and steroids. 

Sarge tolerated the procedure and responded well to treatment, however, in two weeks he suddenly broke out again.  His skin gets red and itchy and then he damages himself with the scratching and causes things to get infected.  Dr. Vargas gave him another steroid injection and we agreed to try using Benadryl to keep things under control for awhile.  We need to have him off of steroids for about three months before we can do allergy testing.

Well, despite Benadryl three times a day, Sarge relapsed again.  The problem seems to rapidly accelerate once he starts the scratching.  This time he started running a high fever again and needed antibiotics as well.   Dr. Vargas gave him another steroid injection.  We've decided to get his condition completely under control before attempting to wean him from the steroids again.

We're thinking that his allergies may be an inherited trait.  There's little-else we can do to change his environment so we've started exploring possible food allergies.  For now we have him on twice daily Atarax (an antihistamine) and tiny Depo-Medrol (methylprednisolone steroid) injections every other day.

Sarge is a complete sweetie and it's tough to see this young boy having such severe medical problems.  It's clear that he appreciates the care he is getting and he makes it easy for us to treat and medicate him.  We'll keep working with him and hopefully will soon discover what's itching this boy.

Hans is a five year old, very cute, sable boy.  He was boarded at Dookie's with seven other ferrets for about six months.  Hans had previously undergone bilateral adrenal surgery and seemed to be doing fine.

Hans' health slowly declined over the next few months and by February, we thought the end was near for him.  He was very lethargic and began refusing the "chicken gravy" feedings.  During an exam by Dr. Mitsie Vargas, we learned that his kidneys were severely impaired.  Dr. Vargas put him on subcutaneous infusions of Ringers Lactate/Sodium Chloride in a last ditch effort to "kick start" his kidneys.  It was just what his little body needed and Hans bounced back very quickly.  However, when we began to taper off the infusions to twice weekly, his appetite again waned and he became more lethargic. 

Hans hasn't eaten any kibble for a few months now.  However, the twice daily "chicken gravy" feedings and infusions every day or so are keeping him well nourished and hydrated.  We also give him a small dose of Prednisone every day to supplement his hormones.  While Hans doesn't have much stamina, he does enjoy his daily outings and occasionally show us a dance of joy.

When Hans' family moved into their new home in June, he remained at Dookie's House due to his poor health.  Hans has permanent kidney damage, but as long as he responds to the fluids, he'll be ok.  We've grown very fond of this sweet little boy and hope he continues to do well.

As is often the case with older ferrets, Napoleon had some initial difficulty dealing with the loss of his family and relocation to Dookie's.  His weight dropped and he developed persistent diarrhea that failed to respond to multiple antibiotic treatments and interferon.

Twice daily chicken gravy feedings, antacids/acid reducers and a small prednisone dosage seemed to help him alot.  He is now a plump boy and his coat is looking much better. 

Napoleon had another surgery on 13 January in a repeat attempt at removing the face lesion.  Dr. Vargas surgically removed the lesion this time.  The fur has since returned to the surgery site and the lesion appears to be history!

He still lacked energy and seemed to be spaced out, especially near meal time.  Testing of his blood glucose revealed that he most likely has pancreatic cancer (Insulinoma) which is responding to Prednisone injections and twice daily "chicken gravy" feedings.

Napoleon is a somewhat shy boy and it is a pleasure to see him dancing with joy when he is let out into the "forbidden areas" of Dookie's House.

Dunn arrived from a nice home in Kissimmee along with four other fuzzies, Bonnie, Clyde, Freddy and Brooks.  Their mom could no longer give them the time and attention that they deserve.  Dunn will be three years old in July.

Dunn is a plain vanilla boy with a very sweet personality with people but is aggressive with other ferrets.  He is vigilant in chasing and attacking any poor ferret foolish enough to enter his domain.  He's ruthless and will severely chomp them be they a big boy or a tiny girl.  We're afraid that he might seriously injure a small ferret unable to defend themselves.

Dunn's life isn't too bad at Dookie's House.  He spends most of the afternoons and evenings in the cage but gets out at night into the "forbidden areas" of the house where he stays until the next afternoon. Of course he is lonely by his own doing and shelter dad is his only playmate. Even though he follows shelter dad around like a puppy dog and gets special treats he even seems to be hesitant to approach him sometimes.  We're thinking that he may have had some bad experiences in his distant past with humans.

Recently, Dunn's spleen swelled up like a balloon.  For several days it seemed to be almost as hard as a rock.  Dr. Vargas examined him and we scheduled him for surgery. 

Surgery revealed a huge spleen that was totally engorged and adrenal tumors that were some of the largest she had ever seen.  Unfortunately,  his pancreas was adhered to his spleen and Dr. Vargas had difficulty separating it without injuring it.  It all looked very grim but we knew that Dr. Vargas would do her best.

Well, thankfully Dunn made it through the long surgery ok   Shelter dad brought him home and tended to him with Ringers infusions, chicken gravy with iron, pain killers and latex gloves filled with warm water to keep him warm.  He had a very rough recovery but is doing great now and is back to his previous energy levels. 

We've noticed that Dunn is much more relaxed and content with shelter dad now than before.  He was very sick and we had an opportunity to give him lots of TLC.  Unfortunately, his behavior with other ferrets hasn't improved with any ferrets that enter his domain.  

Dunn needs to go to a home with loving, gentle, ferret-wise humans and no other ferrets.  After almost a year of looking for such a home for this little boy and making excuses to people why their home probably wouldn't suffice, shelter dad decided to take him off the adoptables page.  Those many months of being Dunn's sole companion took their toll and shelter dad simply loves him too much to part with him.  However, he would be willing to allow Dunn to go to that special foster home that would provide more freedom and attention than he currently gets.

Verdi is a happy, outgoing six year old silver boy who came in with Maya from the Bradenton area.  When he arrived, he was essentially naked from the shoulders back due to advanced adrenal disease.

We promptly scheduled him for surgery with Dr. Mitsie Vargas at the Orchid Springs Animal Hospital in Winter Haven and on May 13, 2002, she removed a grossly enlarged left adrenal gland and froze his right adrenal gland using cryogenic techniques.

Following surgery, Verdi rallied and promptly began regrowing his fur coat.  We were thrilled to see the new fuzz coming in all over his previous bare butt.

Verdi's coat has now fully returned and he appears to be as happy and healthy as ever.  He has had a few symptoms related to adrenal insufficiency but daily Prednisone injections are keeping him on track.

Verdi is an incredibly happy, active boy with a unique personality.  He finds it necessary to paw at his water bowl to make sure it is just right before he will take a drink, getting water all over himself and the surrounding area in the process.

Verdi gets along with most of the ferrets here at Dookie's but sometimes has dominance issues with some new arrivals.  Lately, he has been calming down more and is becoming more accepting of other male ferrets.  His coat continues to soften and he is becoming a very handsome boy.

Verdi is a total joy to have here at Dookie's and we are very pleased that he has done so well, especially considering the poor condition he was in when he arrived.

The Rainbow Bridge