Lucky The Duck Sees Again Thanks To Brooklyn Surgeon

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — In the waiting room of a Fourth Avenue animal hospital Thursday morning, Lucky the 8-year-old duck made sure to let everybody know she had arrived.

The white Pekin duck sat quietly in her carrier, until a nurse, veterinarian, passerby or cell phone camera got close to her cage doors — then, she let out a series of loud quacks to say hello.

"There's a duck in here!" staff behind the counter exclaimed.

But had this been a few weeks ago, Lucky wouldn't have been able to see the people just a foot in front of her in the first place.

"We would walk behind her and she would be all stressed out because she didn't know where we were," her owner, Elias Orbe, said. "Now, she can see again."

Lucky was in the Veterinary Emergency Referral Group, or VERG, hospital waiting to see Dr. Alex LoPinto for a final check-up after he had removed severe cataracts from both her eyes nearly a month ago.

Orbe and Lucky had been referred to VERG after her local vets in New Jersey at The Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine diagnosed her with a cataract more than a year ago.

At first, Orbe said, Lucky seemed to be completely fine. He and his mom, who Lucky lives with in Patterson, NJ, hadn't noticed anything was wrong until the vet told them so.

But it didn't take long before the cataract worsened to the point where Lucky couldn't even see the food an inch from her face. Orbe said they would have to touch it to her bill for her to know it was there.

"She was barely walking," Orbe said. "We would take her outside and she would just sit because she couldn't see."

That all changed with the July 25 surgery, though, when LoPinto used a special bird-sized tip on what's called a phacoemulsification machine to remove the cataracts from Lucky's eyes.

Even just a day after, Orbe said Lucky was back to being the mischievous bird he's known since he adopted her as "a little yellow fuzz ball" when she was two weeks old.

"It's made a huge difference," he said. "She's completely back to normal."

Lucky lives in New Jersey with Orbe's three other ducks, Dino, Penguin and Fluff, all of whom are handicapped rescues from the petting farm where Orbe works.

She is closest with Fluff, who has a club foot. Lucky was born with her legs turned inwards, so both she and Fluff wear booties with special straps to help them walk around, Orbe said.

(Anna Quinn/Patch)

Dino, who has problems laying eggs, has taken on the role of seeing-eye duck for Penguin, who was born without eyes.

Lucky was Orbe's first pet duck after he volunteered to take her from the petting zoo to get checked out at the Wild Bird Fund on the Upper East Side, where he volunteers. He had rescued starlings at his home before and decided since Lucky's legs couldn't be fixed that he would take her home instead.

Over the years, the other ducks slowly were added to the group. All four have become part of the family, he said.

"(Having a duck as a pet) is exactly like having a dog," he said. "Except, they poop everywhere."