Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Please head over to our new blog for our latest posts … including our most recent one reporting on blind Stella's trip to see our veterinary specialists.

This sweet older gal arrived on Friday from Shreveport, Louisiana. A lady named Sherri M. had first contacted us almost a month ago when she’d seen this blind dog show up in the local shelter. Because of her disability and age, she was considered unadoptable, and Sherri and a group of other kind-hearted folks who work to save dogs at that shelter were trying to get her out before she was euthanized. She was turned in to the shelter by her owners, and when they filled out the surrender form, under “Reason for Surrender,” they wrote: “We want to get a puppy.” No, really.

To add insult to injury, they didn’t even bother to write down the old girl’s name, so she showed up nameless. Sherri had spent some time with her and decided to name her Stella. We agreed to take Stella, but she needed to get out of the shelter right away, so we boarded her at a very nice vet clinic that Sherri recommended. Sherri picked Stella up from the shelter and took her to the clinic for us, and even offered to pay some of the boarding fees. The group of people who rescue dogs from the shelter also collectively made a $300 donation to us for her care. Stella had a lot of big hearts helping her.

Our pet transport company wasn’t able to get to Shreveport for three weeks, so Stella was at the vet clinic for quite a while in her private “luxury suite” (it was very comfy, even had a webcam so we could check in on her!). She was emaciated, had lots of worms, and was heart-worm positive as well. The clinic dewormed her, gave her a bath and a good grooming, and fed her as much as she would eat. (We decided with the vet to delay her heartworm treatment until she got here.)

Stella was very timid and unsure when she arrived on Friday; she seemed kind of lost. We walked her in and out of the house on a leash, showed her the ramps and water buckets, and let her explore the house at will. But most of the time she stayed huddled by the front door in the hall way, not really wanting to venture forth. We’d get down on the floor, wrap our arms around her, and hug her tight. We could feel her relax when we did that. But she was still nervous about everything, and understandably so. 

By early Saturday afternoon, though, she had developed some confidence and was starting to get around. By Saturday evening, she had managed to find the ramp and ended up at the front door, ready to come inside. That was a big step!  On Sunday morning, she was starting to go everywhere, both inside and outside. She soon figured out where food was served, and realized the kitchen should be her focus. This unnerved Darla, who was definitely miffed at Stella’s arrival in the first place and could not believe we were making over Stella the way we were … let alone allowing her into the kitchen.

Yesterday evening I was in the kitchen working on their dinner, and was soon cornered by two Labs:

Darla began barking at me, as if to say, “Stop taking those dang photos and start serving up dinner!” The commotion brought more dogs into the kitchen, which led Darla to jump up on me:

“Enough already with the camera! Serve up!”  

I told Stella, “Please, please don’t model this behavior.”  As you can see in those photos, Stella is very much a part of everything now. She’s happy, smiles a lot, and perks her ears up when she hears us. And she loves to be hugged — she’ll press her head into our chests, wagging her tail the whole time.

It’s hard to understand how anyone could turn in a sweet old dog like this and want to run out and get a puppy instead. Even harder to understand when you realize they weren’t feeding Stella adequately or providing basic care. Given that Stella was neglected her entire life, it’s sadly ironic that the best thing her owners could have done for her was to turn her in. Now she gets another chance at a new life.

Here’s another shot I took yesterday afternoon … she was following me around the living room, and couldn’t understand why I kept one or two steps ahead of her:

I’ll be taking her to Peak in Burlington tomorrow for a complete work-up, so we’ll have a better understanding of her health issues soon. In the meantime, please join us in welcoming this sprightly senior lady to the farm! (Darla says: “Wait … you mean she’s staying?”) 

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Yes, that adorable little one-eyed tyke was happily adopted on Saturday by Carolyn S. from Pennsylvania and her dog Maddy. Carolyn, a long-time supporter, had seen him in our e-newsletter in late March and asked if she could adopt him.  We agreed to hold onto him (we had lots of interest in him when that newsletter went out!) until she could schedule a trip up to New Hampshire and meet him. As you may remember, Cap had come to us back in February from an Arkansas shelter. An animal control officer had seen him listed on someone's Facebook page in a "free to good home" post and was concerned he might end up as a bait-dog for dog-fighting rings in the area. The ACO contacted the owner, picked up the dog, and the shelter asked if we could take him.

Since arriving here, he became everyone's best friend, and loved nothing more than roughhousing with Tanner and Bugsy. We told Carolyn that although Cap was a fraction the size of Tanner, he more than made up for it with energy, attitude and spunk. We'd watch as Cap would dart around Tanner at lightning speed, jumping on him and boxing at him from different angles, then whirling away before Tanner knew what hit him. And as you saw in the previous post, Cap was more than a match for the much chunkier Bugsy, too.  (Tanner and Bugsy love to roughhouse together as well, and they each have plenty of other friends here, so they won't be lonely with Cap gone.) 

After meeting Maddy, we think these two will get along just fine — though Maddy may want to borrow some boxing gloves and a helmet!

Carolyn, thank you for giving Cap a wonderful new home!

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I took these photos of Cap and Bugsy playing on Monday afternoon. They’ve become quite the pair of anything-goes competitors (the only thing we haven’t seen yet is kick-boxing). We’ve had other opportunities in recent weeks to take some photos of them in action, but every time they hear the door open as we step out with the camera, or Cap sees us, they break off and run to us. So this time I took the photos through the glass of the storm door and had to shoot over the railings on the front porch. Bugsy is completely blind but weighs three times what Cap does, yet Cap is one-eyed and wily, so it turns out to be pretty even competition. In the photo above, Bugsy is delivering a right hook.

(Click on photo for larger image.) 

In this next one they’ve switched from boxing to sumo wrestling, which you would think must favor the heavier of the duo:

Unless, of course, you’re blind and you suddenly lose, um, sight of your opponent, which can make things a bit awkward:

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This is a little guy you haven't seen much of recently … blind Zach, who arrived almost a year ago. He had come on the same transport and from the same shelter as Darla … and everyone knows by now who's stolen the show ever since. So although he's been overshadowed by the Pumpkin Princess as we sometimes call her (because she's colored like a pumpkin, is a Princess, and could and would eat an entire pumpkin in one sitting if allowed), Zach is a colorful character in his own right.

We took these photos last week, just a few days after our groomer, Lori Fillion, was here. She always leaves her freshly groomed clients with a new bandana, which is what Zach is wearing. You can see he's still got a bit of a scar across his forehead from his surgery last year, but it's really only visible in the first couple of weeks after grooming.

His eyes, which the ophthalmologist determined were blind from either progressive retinal atrophy or SARDS (sudden acquired retinal degeneration syndrome), remain very comfortable.

Like so many of the dogs who come to us, we don't know his age. Based on his energy and activity level, we suspect he's probably somewhere around 5 years old or so. While he does have plenty of get-up-and-go, he's very content to curl up on a bed and snooze away the afternoon.

Zach is one very sweet, very affectionate guy who loves to play with us, wrestle, and talk back, as in:

I think he was saying, "Tell 'em all about me, please!"

We're going to post him on our PetFinder page for adoption soon, but I thought I would give a heads-up to our regular blog readers in case any of you are interested in adopting him. You will need a fenced yard, and potential adopters will have to travel to the farm to meet us and Zach. 

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Please don't forget to bookmark our new blog at http://www.rollingdogfarm.org/rolling-dog-farm-blog/ because I will stop writing new posts on the TypePad blog in the next couple of weeks. The old posts will still stay up.

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On Monday a friend of ours, Leslie P., came over to take our photos for the spring/summer print newsletter that will go to press next week. I thought you'd enjoy seeing this sequence of outtakes — these four shots were all in a row, one right after another. (Click on the photos for a larger image.)

We had Allie, our blind black Lab, in the photo with us. Towards the end of the shoot she was getting a little antsy and wondering why we were all still sitting on the dog bed together:

At this moment Alayne tried to re-focus Allie, which is what's happening here:

Then, realizing Leslie was still clicking away, Alayne threw all her energy into the next frame:

(You really have to see the larger version to appreciate it!)

And then she recovered nicely in the next shot:

Me, I'm still doing my best cardboard cut-out imitation of a man frozen in time and space.

Here's the selection that will be in the newsletter: