TAKE ME HOME YOUR BEST FRIEND SUCCESS STORY Adopted ducks find a home

special to viewClockwise from top, four of the five ducks adopted by Vance Cartee and his wife, Mary, check out their new surroundings at Paradise Springs in southeast Las Vegas. The fifth and final foul wanders up to the Cartee?s home for an afternoon snack. special to viewClockwise from top, four of the five ducks adopted by Vance Cartee and his wife, Mary, check out their new surroundings at Paradise Springs in southeast Las Vegas. The fifth and final foul wanders up to the Cartee?s home for an afternoon snack. SPECIAL TO VIEWShane Somers of Centennial Hills submitted this photo of his 5-year-old Chihuahua-terrier mix Spanky at Red Rock Canyon. Somers adopted Spanky from the former Dewey Animal Shelter. Spanky weighs 8 pounds, but is a giant when it comes to hiking the local trails. Advertisement

MYSTIC

I am ready today to fill your heart and home with love and magic. I'm a very charming and captivating young girl (spayed female), tortoiseshell and white shorthair, approximately 18 months old. Please visit and adopt me in the free-roaming playrooms at the Nevada SPCA's Cat Condos and I promise to put you under my spell, forever.

The Nevada SPCA is a no-kill animal sanctuary located at 4800 W. Dewey Drive in Las Vegas. For information on animals featured here, visit www.nevadaspca.org, or call 873-7722.

NVSPCA

Vance Cartee and his wife, Mary, read the Pet of the Week feature in the View every week and following a recent story on Daffy (one of five ducks available for adoption at the Nevada SPCA) decided to give the group a call.

"My wife and I are animal lovers," said Cartee. "We look for the ad every week because we think they're so cute. And when we saw the duck we thought how difficult it would be to find a good home in Las Vegas for them."

So, Cartee called up the NVSPCA and talked with the organization's duck specialist, who followed up with a few screening questions of her own:

"They aren't going to be in an area where kids will be shooting at them with bows and arrows or anything like that are they?" Cartee recalled the agency's representative asking.

"No way," he said. "There's nothing but old folks in here. We live in a gated community with about a 21/2-acre pond that winds through the community, and we have probably about 100 mallards here already.

"When we went down to see the ducks, one was penned up with a pot-bellied pig because he didn't get along with the group. The other four were kept in a hallway next to dogs and cats."

If you asked the ducks about their newfound home, they'd probably say they'd died and gone to heaven.

If you ask the neighbors, Cartee said, "Everyone loves them."

As for their names, the Cartees have christened their new feathered neighbors Huey, Dewey, Louie, Donna and Howard -- Howard being the loner duck who now has joined the mallard group.

As for the feathered foursome, Cartee says he calls them the cruiser weights because of their size.

"My wife and I, and about 15 other houses, feed them every day. And the loner duck even stops by. He walks on up to the back of the house, where my wife feeds him out of her hand about twice a day," Cartee said.

-- Jeannette Carrillo View managing editor