If you’ve followed the story of Kodiak, you know that he is essentially paralyzed right now.  Keeping him clean and comfortable and on dry bedding is a daily challenge.  Well, one of the sanctuary’s wonderful supporters, Mark C. from Missoula, offered today to buy a special bed designed for dogs in Kodiak’s condition. It’s called…

Today we’ve been treating two of our blind horses for new eye problems … runny eyes, squinting, tearing.  Shasta, an old Appaloosa — the second horse to arrive here — developed this in his right eye.  Rocky, another blind Appy, had a similar problem in his left eye.  Then this evening when we went out…

After five days in the surgery hospital in Spokane, Kodiak came home to the ranch this evening.  (See original post on his surgery here.)  Jerry Black, our fabulous volunteer who makes so many trips for us, drove to Spokane today to pick him up. We slid Kodiak out of Jerry’s truck on some bedding and…

For all of August we’ve had a wonderful young lady working at the sanctuary.  Emily E., whose family lives in Helena and who attends Boston College, came to volunteer one day at the end of July.  We liked her so much we offered her a job for the rest of the summer. Emily has done…

This is Widget, our blind Beagle/Dachshund mix, hard at work in her office this morning.  It’s not easy deciding which bed to lay on, whether to choose a sunny spot or shade, and which side to sleep on.  Or at least that’s what she tells us. We tell her, "Widget, it’s time to get a…

For all of you sweltering in August heat somewhere, here’s something to consider:  This morning when we got up, the temperature was 26 degrees and there was frost on the ground.  How’s that for an August morning? Here’s a photo I took at 7 a.m., just before the sun rose above the mountain range to…

After yesterday’s discouraging news about Kodiak, we are now just eagerly waiting until we can bring him back to the ranch.  This morning he was pretty doped up … even though they didn’t find anything operable, Kodiak still had the equivalent of major back surgery.  By this afternoon he was awake and feeling better, Dr.…

Our veterinary surgeon in Spokane, Dr. Howard Lawrence, called this afternoon at 2:30.  Kodiak was on the operating table with his back opened up.  What he had found wasn’t good. There is a sheath or membrane of connective tissue called the dura mater that surrounds the spinal cord and holds the spinal fluid.  It’s basically…

Kodiak, the big Husky who came to us from Missoula Animal Control 10 days ago, is on his way to Spokane to see our board-certified veterinary surgeons.  We loaded this hefty boy into the back of the truck and Alayne left about 11 a.m.  Kodiak looked pretty happy sitting on his big bed.  You can…

Today we discovered that our beautiful blind mare Lena has developed a problem with her right eye. We noticed a small eruption on the surface of her cornea.  I could see at a distance that something was wrong because her eyelids were a little puffy, and she just didn’t look at me the way she…