Rolling Dog Farm Blog

It’s a rare evening when Alayne and I can spend an hour watching something on TV, but last night after dinner we had a moment to watch a History Channel program on the aftermath of the American Civil War.  Blind Widget loves it when this happens, because it gives her an equally rare opportunity to walk all over us.  Literally.  We know when this is going to happen, because she perks up as soon as she hears us sit down, and then she marches over to the chair or couch we’re on.  She figures out the best way to climb up, and then the next thing we know, she’s on top of us, her face peering into ours.  That’s what happened yesterday evening when I got this photo of Widget standing on Alayne.  (Yes, those things behind and next to Alayne are the dog beds that are usually covering the couch.)

Widget will give us some affection when she’s doing this … the occasional kiss … but the main purpose seems to be, well, just to stand on us.  She will remain perched like a statue on a pedestal for as long as we let her.  Which is not very long, mind you, because that’s a lot of weight pressing down on one’s chest and stomach through four small paws. 

I am generally her victim, and with me, she stands on top and bobs her little tail proudly, as if she were a mountain climber planting a flag on some high peak.  For some reason yesterday she wasn’t as confident about walking all over Alayne, so after some tail-bobbing that accompanied the initial conquest, her tail drooped a bit.  But she was confident enough to remain up there while I went to the office to get the camera and take the photo.

I’ve posted before about how Widget will loom over other dogs until they surrender their chair or bed to her.  It has occurred to us that this just might be the same technique at work, except directed at her human servants, rather than her canine companions.   

This is blind-and-deaf Spinner on our front step this afternoon.  She was waiting not only for me to open the door for her, but to give her "the touch," as I call it.  Somewhere along the way she decided that she would not go through an open door until I had given her permission, and her chosen signal was for me to lightly touch her on the nose with my hand. 

I did not train her to do this.  She trained me.  I don’t really remember when Spinner and I figured this out together, but early on I had a problem getting her to understand that it was okay to come in the house.  She’d stand at the door, knowing it was open because she could smell the inside air coming out, but she wouldn’t go in.  So I finally tapped her on the nose with my hand, and she shot right into the house. 

"Oh, I get it," I said to myself.

Now whenever she’s at the front or back door, she waits patiently … head pointed up in the air … for "the touch" that tells her to come in.  And in she goes.

Interestingly enough, as soon as I touch her nose, she puts her ears down.  She does the same thing when we blow on her (our other way to communicate).  It’s recognition of some sort, as if it’s her way of saying, "Okay, thanks, message received.  Here I come!"

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 university setting at a vet clinic to get some real world experience.  Erin’s practice, Blue Mountain Veterinary Hospital, is one of those clinics that routinely hosts these vet students. (Not every clinic does.)

Amy, who will graduate from OSU’s vet school next January, hasn’t decided for sure which "track" — small or large animal medicine — she will pursue when she graduates, but she grew up with horses and was really enjoying her four weeks at Blue Mountain.  She also likes doing equine dental work, so she did most of our horses today under Erin’s supervision. 

In the photo above, Amy is working on blind Lena.  Erin had already informed Amy of my strongly held and often expressed view that Lena is the prettiest horse in the universe.  Amy was quick to point out how beautiful Lena is, how gorgeous her coloring is, and how she is the perfect size for a horse.  And when she finished with Lena’s dental, Amy stepped back, admired her work, and said, "That’s the most beautiful job I’ve ever done!"

Here’s a shot from the other side of Amy working on Lena:

And finally, here’s a close-up after Amy got done (yes, there are teeth in there, but Lena’s pulled her cheeks in):

Right after I took that shot, Lena stuck her tongue all the way out and smeared the camera lens.  I think she was trying to kiss me.  Erin suggested that wasn’t likely because she was still sedated.  I’m not so sure.

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 Boyle, came to trim the horses’ hooves.  With 33 horses, that’s a full day outside … in the cold rain.  Oh, well.  So we took turns trading off the task of holding horses for Rich, who powered through the entire day.  That’s Alayne holding blind Laddie in the photo. 

Laddie has a terribly arthritic left front knee — it’s swollen and he limps when he walks.  Our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor, gives him regular steroid injections in the knee to reduce the inflammation and make him more comfortable, and we also give him daily anti-inflammatories.  But Laddie is a case where every week we assess his quality of life.  These amazing animals can be so stoic that it is hard sometimes to tell just how much pain they’re in and whether it’s time to make the ultimate decision.  We only get one chance to get it right, and we sure don’t want to make it too soon … or wait too late. 

A couple of weeks ago we had begun to ask ourselves again whether we had reached that point with Laddie because of how he was acting.  He was walking more stiffly, seemed in more discomfort, and just didn’t seem to be himself.  Laddie is not old … still in his late teens.  He has good weight on him and is otherwise very healthy.  It’s just his leg that is the issue. 

Erin wanted to inject his joints again, then give him a week and see how he responded.  Thus when Erin was out here last Thursday doing dentals, we did another assessment on Laddie.  I walked him around so she could see how he functioned, how his gait was, and how much pain he might be in.

She watched him closely for a few minutes and told me, "It’s not time. But I think we can help him some more."  Erin wanted us to put a special shoe on his left foot to help compensate for his knee problem,which causes him to bow his lower leg out.  The result is that sometimes he bears too much weight on the outside edge of his hoof.

So Rich is showing off Laddie’s new shoe, which provides more lateral support for his leg.  Although Laddie was a bit tentative at first — he’s not used to wearing horseshoes — it definitely seemed to help him keep that leg straighter … and the hoof flatter on the ground … as he walked.

We’re taking this one step at a time.  So to speak.

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 in Browning, Montana, about to be euthanized.  She had received no medical care for her leg or for her pain, and her leg was rotting and turning gangrenous.  You can read Cheyenne’s story here.  Fast forward, and Cheyenne now happily runs John and Michelle’s household, along with the rest of their dogs. 

We had another connection with John and Michelle, because they had adopted several dogs from the same shelter in Shelton, Washington, where we adopted our own Dolly, Dillon and Shiloh when Alayne and I were living in Seattle. 

John and Michelle recently lost their dog Molly to cancer, and they had always wanted to adopt another of our disabled animals when the time came.  As it turned out, John emailed me about an adoption the same week that we had been asked to take Sweetie, the dog from … yes, Browning, Montana.  Maybe there’s a little karma thing going on here, but Sweetie had ended up in the same shelter as Cheyenne, had the same mangled right front leg, and was rescued by the very same lady who had contacted us about Cheyenne. 

Hmm.

John and Michelle said "yes" to Sweetie, and they drove out to the ranch today to pick her up and take her home.

Sweetie had been coming out of her shell while she was here, and had learned that no one was going to hit her.  Although she still cowered initially, especially with men, once she realized she was safe with us she’d  start wagging her tail and beaming a big smile.  And while we typically don’t let our dogs jump up on us, in Sweetie’s case she had just started doing it … and this was such an affirmation that she was trusting people and overcoming her fears that … well, we were letting her do it.  (We figured there was time to work with her on this later!)  So here she is, saying goodbye to Alayne this afternoon:

Thank you, John and Michelle!

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 out their winter coats, it was time for some major grooming.  Our wonderful volunteer Rosemary M. from Missoula went to go work on Crazy Horse, who was on the ground, sitting up on his chest, sternal.  Now, normally when you approach a horse who’s down on the ground he or she will get up … it’s a self-preservation instinct. 

But he didn’t budge, so Rosemary began brushing and curry-combing him.  Crazy Horse — he’s our only Appaloosa who isn’t blind — had been soaking in the spring sunshine and he was quite comfy just as he was.  So Rosemary kept grooming, and it felt so good that Crazy Horse just finally lay down all the way and started napping.  That shows you just how comfortable this old boy felt.  Alayne had seen this and went back to the house to get the camera and take these photos.

In this shot, it looks as if Crazy Horse is pointing out a tangle in his tail for some extra attention from Rosemary:

I don’t think Rosemary was ever able to get to his other side, because he never got up!

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 and was inducted into the Washington State Veterinary Medicine Association Hall of Fame as the 2007 Therapy Dog.  Peggy wrote, "We mention this, not to boast about our dog (although we do think he is very special), but for you to understand that we share your belief in the potential of disabled animals to lead full lives."

They got their second Lab, Danni Rae, when she was a blind puppy about Creighton’s age and sitting in a Chicago shelter with no adoption prospects.  So Peggy flew to Chicago, rented an SUV, picked up Danni Rae at the shelter, and drove her all the way back to Olympia.

Matt and Peggy live on a 5-acre place and every day, blind Bobby Lee escorts one of them down the long drive to the mailbox.  Matt told us today, "Bobby Lee thinks it’s his job to go get the mail every day, so he does!"

When they first contacted us about adopting Creighton, he had just arrived here and was about to have surgery.  We told Matt and Peggy we would be delighted to have them adopt Creighton — honestly, we couldn’t think of a better home for this puppy than with a family already so devoted to blind dogs! — but we needed to get him through his eye surgery and post-operative period.  We figured it would be a few weeks before he would be ready.  So they scheduled their trip to the ranch for this weekend, and we had kept in touch in the meantime on Creighton’s progress following his surgery.

We had, as you can imagine, fallen in love with this little blind guy from Mississippi, but this was also an incredible day of joy for us.  We just knew that Creighton would be adored and treasured for the rest of his life by two special people who shared our love for these blind animals. 

As for Creighton, he certainly agreed with our sentiments.  He bounded right up to Matt and Peggy when he first met them, and then started kissing Peggy.  An hour later, he was still kissing Peggy during our photo shoot this afternoon:

Thank you, Matt and Peggy!

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 go from stall to stall to do the exams.  Many of these old horses have teeth so worn down that there is nothing left to do for them except make sure they don’t have any cracked or loose teeth.  (Those that can’t chew hay adequately get equine senior grain.)  Alayne took this photo of Erin working on blind Blue, while I serve as equine head rest.  Blue actually had some teeth left that needed filing down.  Most of our elderly horses, though, fell into the category Erin jokingly called "the old gummers."  Those are the ones who show more gums than teeth when we open their mouths. 

Next week Erin will be back to work on the middle-aged set, so we’ll definitely see more teeth then!

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 caught it on everything — doors, the ground, food bowls, other dogs.  Jeez, it’s hard enough being blind, but add the cone and it’s really difficult to navigate!  But bless his heart, he figured it out, and pretty soon he got used to it.  Yet every day he’d roll around on a dog bed like he was trying to shake it off.

So today, at precisely 4:19 p.m. Mountain time, I removed the cone.  I took the photo above just beforehand.  I fully expected him to get up and do a little jig, then roll around in sheer ecstasy enjoying his newfound freedom.  But, alas, there was no perfect-for-the-camera moment … no bounding around the house, no exultation.  He just wanted me to leave him alone for his afternoon nap.  (Did I mention this Beagle sleeps as much as a cat?)

Here he is at 4:20 p.m., freed from the confounded cone:

I know he’ll thank me for this later.

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 he went blind at the age of six.  (Valiant is one of the two "blind horse inspirations" we listed on our BlindHorses.org Web site.)  In Nikki’s case, the article highlights how we took this little filly who was born blind and were able to train her for riding.  The story includes photos of our trainer Nichole Zupan riding Nikki, and also has a sidebar article on the blind foals that come to the ranch and how we raise them.

The headline on the cover of the magazine says "Training Insights:  How blind horses can lead the way."

On the front page of the article, the title says "Navigating A Dark World:  Two blind horses adapt to a sightless life with the help of dedicated trainers who didn’t give up on them.  Their methods work on sighted horses, too."

Unfortunately, like most horse magazines, the content of the article is not available online.  You can find the magazine at Barnes & Noble and most other major booksellers.