Our treasured old German Shepherd, Pappy, is back in the hospital tonight.  In July he had miraculously survived both pneumonia and meningitis.  He spent 10 days in the hospital then and took weeks to regain his strength once he came home.  But Pappy had been back to his old self for a quite a while,…

Allie, a blind three-year old Lab, arrived at the ranch today.  Her family in California had tried for over a year to find a place that would take a blind dog, and finally contacted us several weeks ago.  The family has two small children — the youngest is 18 months old — and Allie kept…

Today our farrier, Rich Boyle from Simms, Montana, made his regularly scheduled visit to the ranch.  Rich comes about every 6 to 8 weeks to trim the horses’ hooves. We had 13 horses who needed trimming, from our rambunctious 5-month old blind foal Destiny (now she was a handful!) to old, easy-going blind Shasta, who…

We put Kodiak to sleep today.  He let us know he was ready. He had not improved overnight at all.  In fact, he couldn’t even raise his head up this morning.  He hadn’t been sternal (i.e., able to sit up on his chest and front legs) since yesterday morning, and he still couldn’t sit up. …

Our big Malamute with the damaged spinal cord is not doing well.  Kodiak’s back surgery was two weeks ago today.  The surgeon, Dr. Lawrence, had found the problem but was unable to surgically correct it.  His condition, called dural ossification, is progressive.  Dr. Lawrence had warned us that Kodiak might not be able to walk…

I was in the house this evening fixing dinner for the dogs when the phone in the kitchen rang.  It was Alayne, calling from Lena’s Barn.  She was doing barn chores and had seen something … well, something unusual.  "Come quick," she said, "I’ve got a blog item for you!" I dashed to the office,…

A year ago today we lost our treasured old blind mare, Beauty. She had come to us in the summer of 2003 from a Kentucky animal control shelter, where she had been impounded following years of mindless neglect.  In the short year we had her, this girl made an enormous impact on us.  It was…

Today’s medical adventure was eye surgery … specifically, eye removal.  We had been treating our old blind Appy, Shasta, for a few days for an inflamed and clearly painful right eye.  The treatment had not made much difference, so today our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown from Missoula, came out to look at the eye. …