When our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor, came back today for the second round of dentals — this time on the middle-aged set — she brought with her Amy P., a fourth-year vet student from Oklahoma State University.  Typically in their fourth year, vet students are expected to do an "externship" … working outside the…

Despite all the snow we had, and the longest winter in eight years, we have already become concerned about the lack of spring rain.  We only had one appreciable rain so far, and the top inch or two of soil was dry.  Of course, the rain arrived on the same day that our farrier, Rich…

How about a second incredibly happy ending in the same week? John and Michelle W. from Buckley, Washington, had adopted a three-legged Border Collie named Cheyenne from us several years ago.  Cheyenne had just endured having her right front leg cut in half by a leg-hold trap and was sitting in the animal control shelter…

You could be forgiven for looking at this photo and thinking that we were preparing a horse body for burial.  Except our ancient Appaloosa named Crazy Horse is just fine, thank you — he’s enjoying being groomed while sleeping! This past Saturday was one of our regular volunteer days, and with all the horses shedding…

For a happy ending, it doesn’t get much better than this. Matt and Peggy M. from Olympia, Washington, already have two blind chocolate Labs, and when they saw blind Creighton had arrived at the ranch, they emailed us to ask about adopting him.  One of their blind Labs, Bobby Lee, is a certified therapy dog…

Our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor of Blue Mountain Veterinary Hospital in Missoula, came out today to do dentals on our elderly horses — and do we have a lot of those!  We filled the stalls in Lena’s Barn and Beauty’s Barn with the seniors before Erin arrived, so all she had to do was…

Our vet Dr. Brenda Culver gave us the official word today — it was cone independence day for blind Briggs.  For almost two entire months, this little Beagle has had to wear a cone on his head following his eye surgery.  At first, he hated the dang thing and couldn’t get used to it.  He…

The May issue of John Lyons’ Perfect Horse magazine carries a fabulous six-page article on two blind horses, a dressage horse named Valiant and our own filly Nikki.  The article focuses on how both horses were trained to do what few considered possible.  In Valiant’s case, his owner Jeanette Sassoon trained him for competition-level dressage…

After three splendid days of warm, sunny weather in the 50s, winter makes a return visit tonight.  Here’s the Snow and Blowing Snow Advisory that the National Weather Service office in Missoula posted for us this afternoon: — BUTTE/BLACKFOOT REGION-236 PM MDT TUE APR 29 2008 A SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT…

This is blind Laddie, our handsome, sweet Arabian, drinking out of his automatic waterer this afternoon.  We received a grant last summer to put in these automatic waterers throughout our extensive corral system, and it has saved us an incredible amount of labor and significantly reduced our electricity consumption. We used to provide an individual…