Blind Callie was obviously quite comfortable at the vet clinic this morning after her neurological exam and ultrasound.  Our internal medicine specialist in Missoula, Dr. Dave Bostwick, had just put away the ultrasound probe when Callie — who prefers sleeping upside down much of the time as it is — decided she would stay this…

I was sitting in the living room about 8 p.m. last night, working on my laptop, when I suddenly heard a furious scratching noise coming from the couch.  I looked over and saw blind Callie paddling her feet like crazy, her body trembling and quivering.  She had been sleeping soundly just seconds before.  I jumped…

One of the things we love seeing are two animals with totally different disabilities playing and roughhousing with each other as equals.  It just shows us how their innate desire to be happy and enjoy life triumphs over their handicaps.  Because of the mix of disabilities and sizes, we never quite know who's going to…

The first time I put this cone on blind Jake's head I thought it almost looked like an angel's halo.  Unfortunately, the reason he's now wearing a cone is because of decidedly unangelic behavior.  When Jake and Buddy arrived here back in November, they were terribly thin — and it took months for us to…

Not to be outdone by Granny's concrete island-in-the-snow, here is our barn cat Rocky showing off his island.  This is the picnic table outside our welcome center, slowly beginning to emerge from the snow drifts.  I got the photo on Friday afternoon. That's Lena's Barn in the background. You can see the 12-foot roof extension…

Friday was a very sad day for us.  We had to say goodbye to Cindy, who had been with us since last May.  She was the best employee we've ever had at the ranch … by far.  Cindy could do everything — from fixing fence to grooming dogs.  She knew as much, and often more,…

Good heavens, here we went almost an entire week without another sleeping Dachshund photo.  Fortunately, I remembered I had one "in the can," so to speak.  This is blind Callie, sleeping off her dinner the other evening.  She just loves laying upside down like this.  Here's the top-down view: It always makes us smile when…

It was supposed to be 12 below zero (-24 C) last night.  When we got up this morning, it was really 18 below zero (-27 C).  Well, actually minus 18.7 — but who's counting?  And it was still 18 below when Alayne and I headed out for barn chores. Fortunately, as you can see from…

I've been trying to get this shot for weeks now, ever since I first saw our barn cat Joshua drinking from the snowmelt coming off the tractor-mounted snowblower.  We call Joshua the "hydrologist" because he loves drinking from running or dripping water … from whatever the source.  In Beauty's Barn, for instance, he would hop…

There's just about nothing harder to photograph than a black dog on white snow, but Alayne managed to get these shots of blind Evelyn rolling around in the white stuff.  Evelyn loves to roll, whether it's on grass, dirt, mud or … snow.  Anything will do just fine, thank you. Back in late January I…