Alayne got this shot of blind Kenai today doing absolutely nothing but lying on a cot with this stuffed toy in her mouth.  Alayne says Kenai kept that toy in her mouth for nearly 30 minutes, as if it were a canine version of a baby’s pacifier.  Kenai is an older girl — we don’t…

Barbara Edwards, a quiltmaker from Seeley Lake, Montana (about 30 miles northwest of us), has created another beautiful quilt to raffle off as a benefit to the ranch.  Barbara did this last year and raised $1,000 for the animals … and she wants to do it again! The name of this year’s quilt is "Happy…

Have you noticed that the only thing "small" about small dogs is their body size?  Everything else … from their attitudes to the volume of their barks to their own self-image … comes in extra-large. In Bailey’s case, this also translates into an inner need to subdue the biggest toys in the house.  From the…

I headed back to Washington State University’s veterinary teaching hospital today to see our blind foal Brynn and bring her back home to the ranch tomorrow.  She has been in the hospital for an entire month now!  I took these photos this evening of Brynn and 4th-year vet student Prudence Jurica, one of the wonderful…

I was walking out of my office yesterday and heard this odd sound coming from behind the dining table.  I walked over to investigate and found blind Willie, a recent arrival, sound asleep on the cot with blind Kenai, our big black Lab.  Willie’s head was perched on Kenai’s back, and every time Kenai breathed…

This is 4-week old Cash, a blind Quarter Horse foal who came to us from Alabama.  Our horse hauler, Bob Hubbard Horse Transportation, had picked him up on Saturday morning and delivered him to us late last night.  I drove in to Missoula with the trailer to meet the hauler, and I got Cash back…

Today’s edition of USA Today has a wonderful feature article on the sanctuary in the Life section.  We haven’t seen the actual paper yet — we’re 60 miles from the nearest USA Today box! — but the story is now online here. The online version doesn’t have any photos posted (so far) but the print…

Starting last spring, our horse trainer, Nichole Zupan, trained our blind two-year Nikki for riding.  By the end of summer they were out pasture riding.  When winter arrived, however, the training stopped because we don’t have a riding arena and the snow is too deep to do any training outside.  Recently, though, Nichole was able…

Alayne and I wanted to thank everyone for the very moving comments posted on the blog and emailed to us about dear old Pappy.  It was a lonely weekend, with Pappy’s big bed lying empty in the living room most of the time.  But it is so heartwarming to know so many people cared about…

Our beloved old German Shepherd, Pappy, died this morning.  We had taken Pappy to the vet clinic a couple of weeks ago for treatment of a lingering growth on his leg; it was benign but something he kept licking and making worse.  Before he went to the clinic, he had been going through his ups…