Yesterday I had to take several animals in to our vet clinic in Helena, and it was a full truck.  Blind Lady needed a repeat of her Cushing’s test to see if her new medication is working; blind Carmel was in for a follow-up eye exam; and blind Evelyn needed a skin biopsy for a…

We were astonished when Barbara and Scott Edwards came out to the ranch today for the 3rd annual quilt raffle drawing and handed over a check for a whopping $3,065!  That was three times the planned ticket sales.  We knew the quilt had drawn a lot of interest but we didn’t quite realize how many…

You may recall that when our old mule Roy recently lost his buddy, blind Scout, he mourned for quite a while.  We began to let him just wander at will across the ranch, which made him happy and got his creaky joints moving.  He also began to focus on his human servants as masseurs, ear…

This afternoon we saw blind Callie trying to work her way into the cat house, apparently by going under the door.  Now, given her ample girth, this would be right up there as a feat with the Biblical "camel going through the eye of a needle."  But she knew there were cats right behind the…

We noticed in the past several weeks that Trooper, our hound mix from Louisiana with the twisted front leg, has developed quite the relationship with Priscilla, the blind Poodle from Texas.  Now, Trooper has had a way with the ladies before, including Blanca, our blind-and-deaf Great Dane.  But none of the girls has swooned over…

This is what we woke up to this morning … which was actually less snow than we had yesterday morning!  Fortunately yesterday’s snow melted by evening.  But we were braced for far worse, because the Missoula office of the National Weather Service had issued a Heavy Snow Warning for us today: — BUTTE/BLACKFOOT REGION-830 AM…

Following Carmel’s eye exam last week, our vet in Helena, Dr. Brenda Culver, consulted with our veterinary ophthalmologist, Dr. Bill Yakely of the Animal Eye Clinic in Spokane, Washington.  Brenda had also sent Dr. Yakely some photos I had taken of Carmel’s eyes, including the one above.  It turns out that Carmel has a corneal…

Our beautiful blind mare Lena has, um, a bit of a weight problem.  Or, it might be more appropriate to say:  she has to work harder at maintaining her figure than the average mare.  (I think that sounds better.)  What this means is that Lena is always on a diet, which is easy to manage…

This is blind Shep, the dog who arrived from Afghanistan at the end of May, out and about this afternoon for some leash training with his "coach," Jennifer J. from Portland, Oregon.  Jennifer has been a fabulous supporter of the ranch and was here this weekend to lend a hand.  She also brought some Portland…

I was responding to emails yesterday evening in my office when blind Briggs and blind Austin — the two Beagles who arrived recently from Atlanta Beagle Rescue in Georgia — began a wrestling match behind my chair.  Briggs and Austin have become the best of friends and roughhouse like this multiple times throughout the day. …