A single animal can change everything for one person, and Lukas did just that for me. I found him alone, depressed, and in terrible condition at a local MN shelter in 2011. He was scheduled to be euthanized, and it broke my heart to think this old dog would die alone with a stranger so I took him home to be my foster dog, until a foster could be found.
It turned out he wasn’t old, and instead was suffering from Crohn’s Disease and just in terrible shape. His skin was literally rotting off his body, his nails were infected and falling out, and his intestines were in rough shape, but he was so happy and loving with every person and animal that crossed his path. He was showing us he wanted to live, so we dedicated ourselves to making him free of pain and starting on the road to recovery. He thrived on a raw diet from Woodys Pet Food Deli and he started gaining much needed weight. His infections responded to medication and he healed, plus he got some extra good meds to make sure he was pain free while he gained his health back.
A month into his recovery a woman contacted us about wanting to adopt him. We told her we didn’t know the prognosis and it may be costly, but she wanted to meet him so we said ok. As Lukas did, he won this woman over immediately and we made plans for adoption once he was stable. Just a few weeks later he moved into his forever home and was like a whole new dog! He ran, played, snuggled, learned to enjoy toys and ate like a king❤️ He had an amazing year in his forever home before the Chrone’s Disease took him, but through this process he opened my eyes to the animals in our high kill shelters that are terminally ill and had no options. I decided these were the animals I had to start a foster based hospice program for. As a result The Lukas Project was created for MN shelter animals in 2011. Five years later PPR has been honored to provide rescue and care to many hospice animals and we plan to continue until the need is no longer there! Thank you to all our hospice fosters past and present…we could not do it without you!
Our current foster animals are doing great in our care and responding well to treatment.
As of today w
e are caring for Maxie, a 15 year old cat that was given up due to heart problems. It turned out it was a condition she has lived with her whole life, and as of now she continues to thrive in her foster home and we are happy to give her a place to call home for her remaining days!
Bogie is our other hospice kitty and suffering from IBS and possible colon cancer, but is doing well on a managed diet and medications. His immune system struggles to keep up at times, but thankfully he is continuing to do well and is pain free and happy at this time!
And our current Lukas Project dog is Holly! She has diabetes that caused her to go blind, her pancreas to start to fail and also has mammary cancer, but all are managed well at this time and she is eating, sleeping well, enjoying her daily walks and her loving foster home. We do not know how long she has with us given her cancer, but as long as she is loving life and pain free we will keep on truckin’ alongside her!