When our equine vet Dr. Angela Langer was out here last week doing dentals on the horses, I had asked her to draw blood on blind Hawk so we could run a CBC and chem panel on him.  Alayne and I had noticed Hawk just didn't seem himself; a little stiff, lying down more than…

Last week I posted some photos of blind Austin doing his usual trick of hiding at bed time by lying in a deep, grass-covered hole in our yard.  Well, I hitched up the big mower to the tractor a few days ago and started cutting the pasture grass around the house.   This weekend Austin thought…

Late last week our equine vet, Dr. Angela Langer, came out to do dental work on our horses.  (Angela is a colleague of our primary equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor, at Blue Mountain Veterinary Hospital in Missoula.)  In these photos she is "floating," or filing down, sharp points on the teeth of blind Bo using…

Alayne got these photos of blind-and-deaf Spinner late yesterday enjoying the smells of a warm spring evening, when everything is green and lush.  Like all the dogs, she loves this time of year, but because her nose is more powerful and sensitive than the average dog's, the spring smells must be an even richer environment…

Alayne was looking for blind Austin yesterday evening to put him up for the night in Kelly's Cottage, but there was no Austin to be found.  Unfortunately for him, Alayne remembered this routine of his from last summer and knew exactly where to find him — hiding in the tall grass near a pine in…

Wendy M. of Missoula, who adopted blind Stoney and blind-and-deaf Baron from us last year, emailed me these photos this morning.  She had family over to visit recently, and as you can see, Baron was getting plenty of love!  (So did Stoney!)  I've mentioned before that there are these myths that blind dogs, deaf dogs,…

Alayne got this shot of Daisy running through the grass outside our house yesterday morning.  I say she's "running" although it's more like how a really fast turtle would move because of her spine problems.  When Daisy walks she has a distinctive clump-clump-clump sound to her gait — the shelter she originally came from in…

A shelter near Boise, Idaho, contacted us a couple of weeks ago to ask if we could take in an older, blind female dog named Madison.  She had been picked up as a stray back in April.  The shelter's adoption coordinator, Debbie B., told me in an email, "No one has claimed her and we…

Several days ago we noticed Samantha — our blind girl who likes to drink from a running faucet — had developed a new way to drink:  feet first.  After seeing her do this a few times (and of course I never had the camera ready) we realized this wasn't a fluke and for some reason,…

I got these photos the other evening as the last of the day's light was fading.  That's wobbly Mink catching the final rays in the cats' outdoor enclosure.  Like all the animals here, the cats are relishing the long days and warm temperatures.  As soon as we open the window to the enclosure in the…