Rolling Dog Farm Blog

On Saturday our wonderful volunteer Laura B. from Helena picked up Brody and Nevada at the vet clinic and brought them out to us.  Joining Laura at the ranch to volunteer was her daughter Kate, who lives in Missoula.  Together they make volunteering a regular mother/daughter event … one drives east, one drives west, and they meet at the ranch!  Laura and Kate get so much done, we’re always amazed after they leave how much they accomplished.

In the photo is Laura on the left, holding wobbly Rudy, a little guy with cerebellar hypoplasia who came to us from a Utah rescue group last year.  Laura adopted him just a few weeks after he arrived.  Now he comes back to the ranch to "volunteer," too.  In the foreground is Brody, who was enjoying the sunshine after several days in a vet clinic kennel.  Kate is holding baby Nevada.  Sneaking in from the left is blind Widget, who heard the camera clicking and figured if there was going to be a photo, she might as well be in it.

Our vet in Helena, Dr. Brenda Culver, found that the lens in Brody’s right eye had detached and was rubbing up against the cornea (ouch), causing the pain and discomfort we were suddenly seeing.  She went ahead and removed his eye, which is why he’s wearing a cone on his head.  Brenda had just completed an eye exam on him a few weeks ago, which shows you how fast these things can develop in an eye that has other chronic problems.

Brenda also did exploratory surgery on Nevada’s eyes, and as we suspected, there were no eyeballs behind those sealed lids.  Brenda removed the tear glands, which will eliminate the constant discharge from Nevada’s eyes.  It turns out that Nevada didn’t even have normal orbits, or eye sockets … they just never fully developed.  Brenda was going to put a prosthesis, like a little marble, in each eye socket to keep the eyelid from sinking in, creating a concave look.  But unfortunately Nevada’s orbits were so small and ill-formed there wasn’t room to put the prosthesis in either socket.  We also had Nevada spayed at the same time.  All her bloodwork looks great … so aside from her eyes, she’s one healthy little puppy.

I took this photo of Brody a short while after taking the photo above.  He was really happy to be home, and all he wanted to do was crash in the living room.  Which, as you can see, he had no problem doing!  (That’s Bailey snoozing in the background.)