You may remember reading a few weeks ago that a wonderful friend of the animals, Mark C. from Missoula, had bought a special bed for Kodiak, our paralyzed Malamute.  The bed has a mesh lining so urine flows through and drops into a tray below.  This keeps paralyzed dogs from getting soaked in their own…

Alayne and I took two of our blind mares, Lena and Nikki, and their sidekick Lonesome George out to pasture this morning.  As we turned around to head back to Lena’s Barn, we noticed this beautiful sight — the cottonwoods in brilliant gold colors, framing the house.  Fall definitely arrives early here in the Northern…

After two days in the hospital being treated for aspiratory pneumonia, Pappy came home to the ranch this evening.  He seemed just a little put out with me for having left him at the hospital for a couple of days.  (Animals do know how to lay guilt trips, don’t they?)  But once Pappy got settled…

Our treasured old German Shepherd, Pappy, is back in the hospital tonight.  In July he had miraculously survived both pneumonia and meningitis.  He spent 10 days in the hospital then and took weeks to regain his strength once he came home.  But Pappy had been back to his old self for a quite a while,…

Allie, a blind three-year old Lab, arrived at the ranch today.  Her family in California had tried for over a year to find a place that would take a blind dog, and finally contacted us several weeks ago.  The family has two small children — the youngest is 18 months old — and Allie kept…

Today our farrier, Rich Boyle from Simms, Montana, made his regularly scheduled visit to the ranch.  Rich comes about every 6 to 8 weeks to trim the horses’ hooves. We had 13 horses who needed trimming, from our rambunctious 5-month old blind foal Destiny (now she was a handful!) to old, easy-going blind Shasta, who…

We put Kodiak to sleep today.  He let us know he was ready. He had not improved overnight at all.  In fact, he couldn’t even raise his head up this morning.  He hadn’t been sternal (i.e., able to sit up on his chest and front legs) since yesterday morning, and he still couldn’t sit up. …

Our big Malamute with the damaged spinal cord is not doing well.  Kodiak’s back surgery was two weeks ago today.  The surgeon, Dr. Lawrence, had found the problem but was unable to surgically correct it.  His condition, called dural ossification, is progressive.  Dr. Lawrence had warned us that Kodiak might not be able to walk…

I was in the house this evening fixing dinner for the dogs when the phone in the kitchen rang.  It was Alayne, calling from Lena’s Barn.  She was doing barn chores and had seen something … well, something unusual.  "Come quick," she said, "I’ve got a blog item for you!" I dashed to the office,…

A year ago today we lost our treasured old blind mare, Beauty. She had come to us in the summer of 2003 from a Kentucky animal control shelter, where she had been impounded following years of mindless neglect.  In the short year we had her, this girl made an enormous impact on us.  It was…