Month: February 2006

  • Widget’s new prosthetic eye (see original post here) started looking bad yesterday, and by today it was red and inflamed.  This morning Alayne and I took some digital photos of her eye and e-mailed them to Widget’s vet, Dr. Brenda Culver, in Helena for some ‘telemedicine’ consulting.  Based on the images (like this one), Brenda…

  • I talked with Dr. Howard Lawrence, our board-certified veterinary surgeon in Spokane, today about Bailey and what Dr. Bostwick found during his exam yesterday.  Dr. Lawrence said that Bailey is most likely NOT a candidate for surgery because the injury is old.  He said they generally don’t like operating on the spine if an injury…

  • While I was in Missoula yesterday running from vet clinic to vet clinic, I also stocked up on our usual supplies — 700 lbs of equine senior grain and 20 bales of wood shavings.  (Yes, and a few groceries for the two-footed residents here.)  Here’s a photo of Kathryn starting to unload the truck and…

  • This afternoon I was running back and forth between vets, with Chance and George at Bill Brown’s clinic for chemotherapy (see post below) and little Bailey at Dave Bostwick’s clinic for a complete exam.  We wanted to know why Bailey’s rear legs don’t work right and why his back seems out of whack.  We also…

  • I took blind Chance and our old mule, Lonesome George, in to Dr. Bill Brown’s clinic in Missoula today so they could have their second round of chemotherapy.  Both equines have lymphoma, and Bill recently learned about a new treatment protocol for this cancer from Ohio State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine.  There are two…

  • Widget, bless her little heart, is still wearing the cone following her eye surgery last week.  Rather than try and rip it off her head, like most of our dogs do, Widget made peace with the cone early on.  She did have to learn that when you’re as low to the ground as she is…

  • Little Bailey, a miniature Dachshund, arrived today to get a new start in life.  He came from an animal hoarder case in Great Falls, which you can read about here.  The Deputy County Attorney had called us about Bailey several weeks ago, and we had agreed to take him if no one else came forward…

  • Jasper, our German Shorthaired Pointer with the floppy front leg, was adopted today by a wonderful couple from Bozeman.  Laurie and Fred have two Vizsla girls and were looking for a friend for them.  Laurie came across Jasper on our Web site and immediately fell in love with him.  When they got to the ranch…

  • We just posted the Montana Quarterly article on the sanctuary that appeared in the magazine’s winter issue.  It is the best piece we’ve seen written that captures the real spirit of the animals here.  And the photos are stunning.  The editor of the Montana Quarterly graciously gave us permission to post the article and also…

  • While I was with our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, this afternoon (see post below), Alayne was on her way to Helena to pick up Widget and bring her back to the ranch.  Widget’s vet, Dr. Brenda Culver, had called this morning to say Widget was recovering from her eye surgery just fine and could…