Mariah drove into Missoula yesterday afternoon to pick up Birdie and Cody at the vet clinic.  (See "Medical Disaster Day" below.)  I took this photo right after Mariah arrived back at the ranch with them late yesterday evening.  That’s Birdie on the left and Cody on the right.  So … exactly how many rocks did…

I took this photo last night of a rather unusual trio staring at Alayne, who was eating her dinner and trying to ignore the intense looks she was getting from the floor.  That’s Bailey on the left, blind (and plump) Callie in the foreground, and big blind Kenai in the back.  Just because a dog…

Alayne took this photo of Claude, our Great Dane puppy, and Bailey the miniature Dachshund, sharing a dog bed on our living room floor.  To be honest, Bailey and the rest of the short-leg crowd are not very fond of "Clod," as they refer to him.  He’s huge, he’s mostly blind, and he’s a puppy,…

When I walked into Kelly’s Cottage this morning to let the dogs out (these are the dogs that stay with Alayne and me at the main house), the smell hit me first … then the sight.  Birdie had thrown up everywhere, big gobs of green grass all over the floor and beds. But the awful…

Missoula’s local CBS affiliate, KPAX TV, aired their feature story about the sanctuary on last night’s newscasts.  It aired on other CBS stations in Montana this weekend as well.  This morning KPAX posted the video on their Web site, and you can find it here.  You’ll see this screenshot of our blind horse Nikki; the…

We’ve discovered that whenever Bailey sees me get the camera out, he thinks he needs to do something — anything — to get his photo taken.  (Unless he’s waking up, of course, and then he’s content to let the opportunity for ‘exposure’ pass him by.)   For instance, this evening I was getting the camera to…

Last night we had the biggest scare we’ve ever experienced since moving here in 2000.  About 9:30 p.m. Alayne was over at Widget’s House putting dogs up when she saw a bolt of lightning strike the ground to the south of us, across the county road; in an instant a raging grass fire erupted.  I…

Yesterday morning we noticed Buzz, our Golden Retriever with a neurological condition, had thrown up overnight.  We monitored him during the day, and although he was more subdued than his usual self, he  seemed like he was getting over an upset stomach.  But we found he threw up again last night, and again this morning…

You may remember our post about deaf Tyler’s boat from last month, where I described how Tyler would only eat in this crate we called his "boat."  This was the photo we used in the post. Well, somewhere along the way since then the boat fell out of favor.  Tyler became very fussy about where…

Today was our annual vaccination and health exam day, when our vet Dr. Brenda Culver from Montana Veterinary Specialists & General Care in Helena came out to the ranch to do all the dogs.  In years past Brenda was able to do all the dogs AND the cats in one day, but with our growth…