I headed to the Missoula airport last night to meet our newest arrival, a deaf Beagle named Stuart. He came to us from Fort Myers, Florida, where his family had decided they could no longer care for him. Stuart also has some neurological issues, and has a pronounced head tilt when walking.
He’s a very sweet boy, although he is a bit scared right now and unsure of why his life has turned upside down all of a sudden. But this morning he greeted me by standing up on his back feet and putting his front paws on my leg; he had a look on his face that said, "Oh, I remember you from last night!"
When we informed Widget — who was teaching blind Willie how to be a Beagle, before he was adopted last summer — that another Beagle had arrived, she woo-woo’d and said, "I’ll be the judge of whether he’s a real Beagle!" (Memo to Widget: At least Stuart has real legs.)
For now, Stuart is still adjusting to the weather and the snow ("What on earth is this stuff?"), but he’s settling in just fine.
I took the photo above of Alayne holding Stuart this afternoon, outside our isolation cottage. Alayne is wearing what I call her "babushka outfit," a thick scarf wrapped around her head and under the chin to ward off the winter cold. This, for some reason, is her preferred winter head covering. When she wears this thing, I refer to her as "Mrs. Babushka" … with predictable results. Me, I prefer the Carhartt quilted hat with earmuffs.
Meanwhile, Stuart’s thinking, "Hey, I’ll take both a babushka and a Carhartt hat, its cold out here!"
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At the Missoula airport, one of the Delta/Skywest employees who unloaded Stuart from the airplane and brought him up to the counter for me turned out to have a strong connection to the ranch. His parents had adopted a dog from us several years ago. The dog, a female Lab named Campbell, came to us from a local Montana shelter because of medical problems, including incontinence. Well, some good veterinary care fixed her up, a daily dose of PPA took care of her incontinence, and now she’s the family’s beloved pet … and their best bird dog ever.
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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