I took our blind Beagle/Dachshund mix, Widget, into Missoula today for an evaluation by our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Dave Bostwick.  Widget has had some odd episodes in the past several weeks … she’ll suddenly get very quiet, her usually upright tail will drop, and she’ll act zoned out for a few minutes.  A couple…

I didn’t have any animal-related items to post this evening, so I thought I’d show you a couple of photos I took late this afternoon as the sun was going down.  This first photo is the view facing northeast from the ranch.  The gate in the foreground leads to one 10-acre pasture and another 30-acre…

I drove over to Helena late this afternoon to pick up the animals we left at the vet hospital on Thursday:  Callie the blind Dachshund, Cody the puppy, Snowball the cat, and Luke the blind dog.  Because of the chronic and painful condition of Luke’s eyes, our vet Dr. Brenda Culver went ahead with the…

Our little blind dog Goldie — she’s one of our original ‘six-pack’ of dogs from when we lived in Seattle — has a case of obsessive compulsive disorder … and a nose that feeds her disorder!  She is absolutely obsessed with soft toys and wants to rip the stuffing out to get to the squeaker. …

I took five of our recent arrivals to Helena this morning to see our primary care vet, Dr. Brenda Culver, at Montana Veterinary Specialists & General Care.  Brenda and her husband, Dr. Britt Culver — a board-certified internal medicine specialist — own the clinic and have been our principal vets since we first moved to…

I was in the office late this afternoon when Alayne came in and told me to come out to the living room to see something.  There on a dog cot was this scene:  little Callie the blind Dachshund and big Kenai the blind Lab, sharing the bed.  It was as if they both knew they’d…

Unlike most Dachshunds we know — who like to burrow — blind Callie likes to perch up high.  The higher the better.  Her favorite spot in the house is the stack of towels we keep on hand in the living room.  (I’m sure you can guess why … the inevitable accidents, spilled water bowls, etc.)…

Kongs are supposed to be an almost indestructible dog chew toy that can stand up to "power chewers," as the Kong Company calls them. Kong Company, meet Kenai the Kong Destroyer. There is no Kong toy she cannot destroy in a 10-minute chewfest.  Even the company’s "Extreme Kong" is no match for this blind, 9-year…

One of our awesome volunteers, Laura B. from Helena, adopted Bandida the cat today.  Bandida had come to us from an animal hoarder case in the Flathead Valley of Montana last year.  The hoarder kept 28 cats in an attic in deplorable conditions.  When finally discovered, the local animal control agency had to euthanize 20…

This is where we go to pick up our hay.  This barn belongs to our neighbors, Bob and Judy R., who grow the hay we buy.  Bob and Judy are kind enough to let us store our hay in their barn, which saves us the considerable expense of building a hay barn of our own. …