If you have a rodent or other exotic pet, steer clear of Will Duke. Two years ago, I went to Care for my one year old rat to have a mammary tumor removed. Mammary tumors are common in unsprayed female rats, and since they're non-invasive and my rat Clementine was a healthy one-year old with no prior health issues, it should've been just a routine procedure. Clementine's tumor was under her arm and was a little smaller than a golf ball. Nothing out of the ordinary for a mammary tumor.
First off, Duke insisted that we go ahead and spay her during the same surgery to remove her tumor. I could agree with this. Everything else that followed was a complete nightmare. He insisted I fast her for 12 hours prior to surgery. For those of you not familiar with rats - they can't throw up, so aspiration is impossible, but the real problem is that fasting a rat will cause their body temperature to drop and hypothermia will set in, potentially killing them. Will Duke said that was untrue and I "shouldn't believe everything I read on the internet" and reiterated that he was the expert and had experience with rats. Although wary, I went ahead and scheduled surgery for the next day because he was still the only "exotic" vet we could find in the area (and that's after driving an hour). I gave the front desk my card number and requested that they charge the procedure fees so I wouldn't have to deal with that after the surgery - they told me that was fine. That night, I called my family vet (who does not treat exotics and had referred me to Care) and asked for advice, to which I was told it was most likely just nerves and to trust the doctor.
The next day, I brought Clementine to the vet along with two jars of baby food and a small ziplock bag of solid food. I requested with the front desk AND with Duke himself that she be fed prior to surgery and explained my concerns about her body temperature. He brushed me off and took Clementine's carrier with the food inside. About an hour after I dropped her off, Duke called himself to tell me Clementine died during surgery. Completely devastated, I went in there demanding to know what happened. He couldn't tell me what happened exactly - he said that the tumor removal went fine, but during the spaying, she simply stopped breathing and couldn't be resuscitated. The spew that came out of his mouth next still infuriates me to this day. Without me bringing it up, he said he couldn't find anything indicating that fasting rats prior to surgery is dangerous (completely untrue - I can't even find one source online that *doesn't* talk about the dangers of fasting rats before surgery). He referred to her tumor several times as "cancer" (it wasn't cancerous - it was benign), and then blamed her death on doing two procedures at once because she was "under anesthesia for too long." Even if that were the case (and it's not - doing tumor removal and spaying in one go is a routine procedure and there is no one hour time limit if you're administering anesthesia and monitoring their levels correctly), HE IS THE ONE WHO INSISTED I SPAY HER TOO. If there was an added risk due to the amount of time she would be under anesthesia for two procedures, I should've been made aware, but instead, this is the first time I was hearing about this bogus time limit under anesthesia. Not once did he apologize or seem sincerely sorry for my loss. When he brought her out so I could have alone time with her, I was horrified at how ridiculously large and gnarly her spay incision was, which leads me to believe he didn't have the proper rat-sized equipment and used tools that were much too large on her. The food I had brought was left untouched. To add insult to injury, even though I didn't have the credit card on hand due to our arrangement made previously, I had to stand at the desk crying for about 10 minutes with my dead rat in her carrier to sort out the charges (removing the post-surgery meds that had already been added - we were still charged for everything else). I then had to make the hour-long drive home with my dead rat next to me.
The next day, I received a heartfelt card/letter from my family vet, who was torn up about hearing what happened. A few days later, I received a generic "sorry for your loss" card that was just signed by Will Duke. I continued to receive emails prompting me for a customer experience survey, which were upsetting. I had to call and demand they take my email address off whatever list they were using.
If you have exotics, please don't let this man touch them. He is arrogant, rude, cold as ice, and he lacks even the most basic knowledge about them. He's the type of faux "exotic" vet you're warned about when you get an exotic pet. He misrepresented himself and his knowledge/experience. Clementine was not practice, she was my beloved pet.
I have since heard that he treats all the rodents at the local Petsmart. No wonder they're all constantly sick and in such bad shape. read more