Frankie, a Curly Success Story

 About Frankie: 

Frankie was an emergency shelter pull from New York City Animal Control. He arrived with a melting corneal ulcer - any delay in his treatment could mean that his eye would have ruptured probably leaving him blind or possibly needing his eye to be removed.  Our talented vets, Center for Veterinary Care (CVC) began administering eye meds around the clock (every 3-4 hours) for the next seven days. The results were beyond our expectations and Frankie left CVC a week later with a small scar and but due to the severity of the ulcer some significant loss in vision in that eye.

 Frankie is the kind of pug with bulging eye balls and he suffers from dry eye - an unfortunate combination that meant he will be always prone to reoccurring eye injuries. Frankie's first foster mom, Amy F., followed though the next few weeks, religiously administering his eye medication to make sure his eye healed as best it could. Frankie had quite the personality and is a very wiggly pug so at times this was a tall order.

Frankie had a change of foster home and spent some time with Wendy H and her family in CT. Frankie loved having his new fury foster siblings but as most pugs, preferred lap time with Wendy. Unfortunately Frankie's other eye suffered the same fate and he developed another ulcer. With the very real possibility that Frankie could now loose 100% vision in his good eye - we were facing a very real situation where Frankie most likely would be a blind pug. Wendy immediately took him to her own vet and we began treatment on his good eye. His ulcer was not improving and we made the decision to try to get him to NYC as soon as possible.

When Frankie arrived at the CVC for the 2nd time the news was grim. Frankie's good eye had already ruptured - he would certainly lose some vision, and we had to decide whether to admit him for another week of around the clock care or to enucleate his eye. Frankie wasn't a big fan of staying at the CVC but we made the choice to do everything we could to try to save Frankie's eye and restore as much vision as possible. The CVC team administered drops again every 3 hours over the next seven days. Progress was very slow but after 6 days we were updated with the news that the ulcer had plugged and showed promising signs of healing. The following day, Frankie's eye re-ruptured. We were faced with another very difficult decision - Frankie wanted out of there and should we put him through the same round the clock regime. We decided to put him back on the same regime and make a decision in the next 48 hours. Fortunately Frankie's eye re-plugged nicely, with more round the clock treatment he was ready to be released 4 days later. Frankie had become such a fixture at the CVC on the day they 'told him' he was going home he would stop barking for hours.

Frankie was moved to one of our ER foster homes. Both Carrie and Drea did a great job for the next two weeks keeping up his eye regime. Frankie healed very well and regained more vision than expected. Frankie was well on the road to recovery.

 Frankie moved to his final foster home, Jaz who had adopted a blind pug from Curly Tail, so she was well versed in eye management and her home was very safe for a hard of seeing pug. Frankie loved having Blackberry as a companion and when he felt a little frisky he would have fun and chase Jaz's cat. Frankie was showered with love in his new home (a nice break from vet jail) and Jaz followed Frankie's new medication regime like a book, he continued to make improvements each day.

 Frankie has adapted well to his new vision and will be on eye medication for life.

We are pleased to share with you that Frankie has been adopted and placed in his forever home Michael, Frankie's new dad has an older pug, Basil who is 11/ 1/2.  He had another pug that passed away in June - he was an old timer.  They also have 2 cats ages 21 and 5.  Michael works from home and has a couple of roommates so there is always someone home to keep Frankie company!  He brings his dogs on vacation with him and has even declined vacation requests when his dogs were not allowed to go.  Congrats to Frankie and his new forever family!