We brought Claude the blind Great Dane puppy and Brynn the blind foal to Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine today.  Our wonderful horse trainer, Nichole Zupan, joined me on the trip to share driving and animal care duties along the way.  I took this photo shortly after we got Brynn settled in her…

I took this photo of Alayne with Claude the blind Great Dane puppy yesterday morning before she took him to our vets.  By evening, we had a very troubling diagnosis for this boy. Ever since Claude arrived last fall, we’ve been concerned about his development. His spine was hunched, he was sort of flat-footed, and…

I know this photo will probably make you cringe — sorry — but Alayne brought blind Turtle home this afternoon from the vet clinic after her eye surgery.  Turtle was blind from uveitis … something we’re more likely to see in our blind horses than in our blind dogs and cats … and her eyes…

I took this photo today of Alayne coming back around noon from Widget’s House, our main dog building there in the background.  Wherever Alayne goes, she has a little cluster of dogs that follows her down to the gate, waits for her, and then leads her back, as you see here.  Just before I shot…

Blind Goldie loves soft squeaky toys … but really only the squeaker inside them.  She can smell a soft toy no matter where we try to hide it, but if it turns out not to have a squeaker in it, she’ll the drop the toy in a second and wander off.  No squeaker, no fun.…

Alayne and I had just finished feeding the dogs yesterday evening when I looked over in the living room and saw this scene — that’s blind Callie on the left, sharing the cot with her friend blind Kenai.  You’ll notice the eyes look very different.  Callie is blind from progressive retinal atrophy, so her pupils…

If you missed the Today Show segment this morning — yikes, it finally ran in the last 15 minutes of the 3-hour program! — it is now available online at the Today Show Web site here.  Click on the "Launch" button under the photo of Alayne with blind Penny and that will bring up a…

The NBC Today Show producer who did the story on the sanctuary called late this afternoon to tell me our segment is now likely to air tomorrow morning, Friday, in the third hour of the program, i.e., sometime after 9 a.m.  This is a change from the earlier schedule, which had our segment airing in…

We’re going to be on NBC’s Today Show on Friday morning, January 26th!  Not only are they airing a story they filmed here at the ranch this past Monday, but they’re also flying Alayne out today to New York so she can appear "live" on the program tomorrow morning.  And if that’s not enough, they’re…

I hauled little Brynn — our blind foal with the chronic urinary problem — into Missoula today for a ‘deep cleaning’ at our equine vet clinic.  Because Brynn doesn’t like anyone working around her backside … we need to clean between her thighs, around her vulva, and other sensitive areas … she needs to be…