Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Popeye, the cat who came from Lebanon a few months ago, has ruptured the cornea in his left eye.  Not just a nice little treatable corneal ulcer, but a hole that goes right through the cornea and into the anterior chamber.  The internal fluid in the eye, called the aqueous humor, was leaking out and forming a bubble on the surface of his eye.  His eye was filled with goop, and once I wiped it away, I could see immediately what had happened. 

So Alayne drove him to our vet clinic in Helena this morning, and took the photo above of Dr. Brenda Culver examining Popeye’s eyes with her slit lamp, an ophthalmic microscope.  Vet tech Rick is holding Popeye for her.  Brenda will have to remove his left eye as a result of the rupture.  She’s concerned that she also sees further changes in his right eye, through which he still has a bit of vision left. 

Here’s what his left eye looked like:

If you click on the photo for a larger image, you can clearly see the brown-ish bubble … the hole is to the left of the bubble, in the dark spot. 

When I saw this, I was momentarily confused … because I thought I had seen it before.  But where?  I went back and looked at the earlier photos of Popeye that the Lebanese rescue group had sent us, and there it was … as a scrawny, tiny kitten, you can see a similar rupture in the same eye … in the same spot!

That rupture was what cost him vision in the left eye as a kitten.  It’s odd that the same thing would happen several months later … and while we think the initial rupture when he was a baby was caused by a runaway virus of some sort, we don’t know for sure what caused the corneal blow-out this time.  He hasn’t been sick, his eyes looked fine, and then all of a sudden, the cornea ruptures. 

It may already have been very weakened by the earlier episode; a cat’s cornea is only about half-a-millimeter thick to begin with.  Brenda wonders if Popeye didn’t run into something … he zooms around the cat house like a whirling dervish, and doesn’t always pay close attention to where he’s going!

So Brenda will do surgery tomorrow and remove that eye … and Popeye will be a much happier boy afterwards.

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We finally got the pathologist’s report on Wobbles’ necropsy, and he died from a sudden onset of acute pneumonia.  He was prone to pneumonia — typically, aspiratory pneumonia from getting bits of food in his lungs, because of how he wobbled while he ate — and we battled many scary episodes … he would be fine in the evening and at death’s door the next morning.  In just a matter of hours, pneumonia would consume him.  But equally, he responded to treatment in just a few hours, too.  Yet each subsequent case would be worse than the previous one; it would strike faster and the symptoms would be more severe.  Somehow, the timing of this episode was such that we didn’t catch it before it was too late.  And that haunts me.

Today I took our little blind-and-deaf Cocker Spaniel, Ellie May, to see our internal medicine specialist in Missoula, Dr. Dave Bostwick.  For the past couple of weeks, Ellie May has had blood in her stools.  At first we thought it was colitis or some kind of other intestinal bug, but she didn’t respond to antibiotics.  So last Friday, Dave ultrasounded Ellie May’s GI tract and other organs but didn’t find anything suspicious.  The next step was a colonoscopy, which is what we did today.

In the photo above, Dave is looking through the endoscope into her colon, while his vet tech Tracy holds Ellie May and keeps an eye on her vital signs during anesthesia.

Dave said her large intestine looked visually normal — there were no masses or growths.  However … a big however … some cancers (like lymphoma) can still be present, so Dave took biopsies of Ellie May’s intestine.  We should have those results back by Friday.  It could turn out she has a form of inflammatory bowel disease, but we want to be able to rule out cancer first. 

Here’s another shot of Ellie May under anesthesia.  She did really well, and came out of it just fine:

Incidentally, I exercised sound judgment and decided not to post photos of the colonoscopy taken at the other end of Ellie May.

I got this shot of blind-and-deaf Spinner staring at the wood stove in our living room, looking expectantly at the non-existent fire.  Now, what she’s thinking I can only guess, but she does know where she is and she does know the wood stove is in front of her … because she sleeps every night on a cot right there in the living room.  So she expects warmth to be radiating out from this corner.  But this was late afternoon, and I usually don’t start the fire in the wood stove until early evening.  That’s how we heat the house, and if I get the stove going really well, it will keep the house warm all night … and into the next day.

As for Spinner, I think she was ready for her fire … right now!

I headed to the Missoula airport last night to meet our newest arrival, a deaf Beagle named Stuart.  He came to us from Fort Myers, Florida, where his family had decided they could no longer care for him.  Stuart also has some neurological issues, and has a pronounced head tilt when walking.

He’s a very sweet boy, although he is a bit scared right now and unsure of why his life has turned upside down all of a sudden.  But this morning he greeted me by standing up on his back feet and putting his front paws on my leg; he had a look on his face that said, "Oh, I remember you from last night!"

When we informed Widget — who was teaching blind Willie how to be a Beagle, before he was adopted last summer —  that another Beagle had arrived, she woo-woo’d and said, "I’ll be the judge of whether he’s a real Beagle!"  (Memo to Widget:  At least Stuart has real legs.)

For now, Stuart is still adjusting to the weather and the snow ("What on earth is this stuff?"), but he’s settling in just fine. 

I took the photo above of Alayne holding Stuart this afternoon, outside our isolation cottage.  Alayne is wearing what I call her "babushka outfit," a thick scarf wrapped around her head and under the chin to ward off the winter cold.  This, for some reason, is her preferred winter head covering.  When she wears this thing, I refer to her as "Mrs. Babushka" … with predictable results.  Me, I prefer the Carhartt quilted hat with earmuffs. 

Meanwhile, Stuart’s thinking, "Hey, I’ll take both a babushka and a Carhartt hat, its cold out here!"

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At the Missoula airport, one of the Delta/Skywest employees who unloaded Stuart from the airplane and brought him up to the counter for me turned out to have a strong connection to the ranch.  His parents had adopted a dog from us several years ago.  The dog, a female Lab named Campbell, came to us from a local Montana shelter because of medical problems, including incontinence.  Well, some good veterinary care fixed her up, a daily dose of PPA took care of her incontinence, and now she’s the family’s beloved pet … and their best bird dog ever.

The wonderful folks from Doggon’ Wheels in Bozeman kindly came out to the ranch today to measure three of our dogs for wheelchairs.  All three — brothers Smokey and Charlie, and Noodle the Collie mix — have cerebellar hypoplasia, which affects their balance and fine motor skills.  We have several animals with this condition, and have never needed to get wheelchairs for them before.  Because they are born with cerebellar hypoplasia, these animals typically improve their stability as they get older.  Their brains start figuring out how to compensate, and they learn to stand with a wider stance on their front legs, use their tails for increased balance, and walk with a gait that keeps them upright … most of the time.  Yes, they tumble and fall, but they cherish their freedom of movement.

But Charlie and Noodle have not improved as they grew older.  In fact, Charlie — the little tan guy in the photo above — has actually seen his motor skills diminish somewhat since arriving.  His biggest problem is that when he falls, he almost always lands chin first.  As a result, he has a permanent open sore on his chin.  This is no doubt painful for him … and painful for us to watch.  It’s almost like an involuntary reflex, because as he’s starting to tumble, he arches his back and then dives head first.  Most perplexing, he seems to put extra energy into it, pushing off with his back feet as he begins falling.  We don’t know why Charlie can’t get a paw out to block the fall, or why he doesn’t roll over to land on his side … but he doesn’t.  It’s chin first.  And as the weeks have ticked by, we’ve realized that for whatever reason, his brain and body can’t change the biomechanics of this.

Charlie’s brother Smokey is more stable, but still tumbles more than he should, so we think he would benefit from a wheelchair as well — at least for part of the time.  It would also probably help Charlie adapt to the chair more quickly if he saw his brother using one as well.  Here’s Jason from Doggon’ Wheels measuring Smokey for his chair:

Noodle had better motor skills when she first came as a skinny pup, but as she grew and gained weight, her stability decreased.  She can "walk" in short bursts of about 10 feet or so, but that’s about it, and she can’t stand still.  If she stands up, Noodle has to move in her burst of speed.  Her sister Soba is much more stable and cruises everywhere.  In this next photo Jason is measuring Noodle while I hold her.  (If I look a bit overdressed for the occasion, it’s because I had just come into our welcome center from doing barn chores in the 5-degree morning cold … and was heading right back out again.)  The hands at the table belong to Kenny from Doggon’ Wheels, who’s writing down the measurements as Jason takes them.

We’re getting quad chairs — with front and back wheels — for the trio, and we should have them within about 10 days.  Then we’ll see how they do!

It’s tough to keep a girl on a diet when she seeks out every opportunity to steal, harass and intimidate other dogs into giving up their meals to her.  Widget is incorrigible when it comes to food.  I caught her doing one of her sneaky little maneuvers the other evening — "I just happened to be walking by when I came across Uncle Dillon’s food dish, just sitting there on the floor in front of me."  She’s actually been lurking, waiting for the right moment to strike.  Dillon is the slowest eater we’ve got, so he’s always a good prospect for Widget.

You can see she’s not quite sure of herself because her tail is down … she’s not worried about how her Uncle Dillon will react, he’s a big push-over and lets anyone steal his food … but she knows I’m nearby and isn’t confident she’s going to get away with this.

In this next photo she’s just about got her head in the dish to clean up whatever Dillon has left.  She doesn’t know why I haven’t stopped her yet, but she’s going to take advantage of the opportunity.  She might think I have my back turned or have my head stuck in the fridge, or maybe I’m just taking photos of one of those pesky Dachshunds and haven’t noticed her yet.  (When you’re blind it’s hard to assess your risks, you know?)  In any case, she has the means, motive and … yes, the opportunity:

And then … drat! … the voice of authority (that’s me) booms from behind the camera:  "Widge – jit!  You leave Uncle Dillon’s dish alone!"  She doesn’t mind being caught in the act of eating another dog’s food if she manages to score.  What she hates is being caught just seconds before she scores, when she’s so close to the dish she can almost taste the food.  To paraphrase an old expression, "Close, but no kibble."  So here’s her slinked back, "don’t forget I’m innocent until proven guilty" look:

Old Dillon, by the way, gave us a scare over the past few days by struggling to get sternal, as you see him in these photos.  But he’s doing better this evening. We just take it day by day.

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Update on Rooster the Belgian:  I drove into Missoula late this afternoon to pick up Rooster and bring him back to the ranch.  So far he seems to be doing just fine.

 

I went out to feed the horses on New Year’s Eve morning and found our Belgian draft horse, Rooster, lying flat out on his side in the snowy corral.  It was snowing, the wind was howling, and judging from the ice balls in his mane and the snow all over him, he’d been like this for awhile.  Rooster and his brother Beaver have a big run-in shed for shelter, so he wouldn’t have decided to lie down to sleep in these kinds of conditions.  I called to him but he didn’t get up.  I threw hay out, and he didn’t get up.  Uh oh. 

I walked right up to Rooster and only then did he sit up … but he still wouldn’t stand up.  I went back to Lena’s Barn to get his halter and lead rope.  He let me put it on him while sitting down.  I tried coaxing him up, tugging gently on the lead rope, but he wouldn’t budge.  He just sat there, sternal, and stretched his neck way out, resting his chin on the ground.

I suspected colic, but also worried about hypothermia, since he was covered in snow and had been down for a long time.

At this point, I called Alayne to tell her we had a problem with Rooster and ask her to come out to help.  Then I called our equine vet clinic in Missoula, Blue Mountain Veterinary Hospital.  Dr. Erin Taylor, our equine vet, was out of town for the holiday, so I spoke with Dr. Doug Reedy.  Doug offered to come out to the ranch, but if Rooster needed IV fluids, it would be better to take him to the clinic … if we could get him up.  So Doug told me to give him an IV injection of banamine, an anti-inflammatory, and I told Doug we’d call as soon as we managed to get Rooster in the trailer.

As I walked back to the house to get the syringe, banamine, and stethoscope, Alayne succeeded in getting Rooster to his feet.  What a relief.  After I injected the banamine into his jugular — big horse, big vein, easy to find! — I listened to his heart rate.  His heart was pounding at 120 beats a minute.  Ohmigod.  I’d never heard a horse heart rate faster than 80.  I couldn’t believe it and handed the stethoscope to Alayne.  She counted the same beats. 

I hitched up the horse trailer to the Chevy pickup, and Alayne walked Rooster through the corrals and out to the truck.  He loaded just fine — but being a draft horse and an exceptionally big one at that, he had to duck his head to fit in the trailer.

About an hour and a half later, I arrived at the vet clinic.  Doug took Rooster’s heart rate, and even after a whopping 18 cc dose of IV banamine, his heart rate was still racing at 80 beats per minute.  He also had a fever, which is unusual for a colic case.  That’s why, in the photo at the top of this post, Doug is doing a belly tap on Rooster to see if he has any fluid in in abdomen that would suggest an infection or gut leakage of some sort.  Vet tech Courtney, who makes frequent appearances on this blog, is holding Rooster.

In this photo, Doug is doing a rectal exam, trying to find an impaction or other gut problem.  To give you some idea of just how big Rooster is, Doug is a big guy himself at 6′ 2" … and you can see that’s just about as tall as Rooster’s rump: 

Rooster came to us because of the awful swayback condition that is so obvious in the photo.  We’ve noticed in the past few months it has become more pronounced, but it doesn’t yet seem to be causing him pain.

In this next photo Doug is pumping fluids and electrolytes directly into Rooster’s stomach, while Courtney uses a twitch on Rooster to give him something else to focus on besides the tube in his nose.  After the fluids, Doug pumped a jug of mineral oil into Rooster to help loosen everything in his intestines.

Then we put Rooster in a stall so Doug and Courtney could hook him up to IVs, and we left him there to spend the rest of New Year’s Eve.  No parties for this boy.

Doug called this morning to say Rooster’s vital signs had all returned to normal, he had pooped, and he looked great.  Whew!  That was great news to start off the New Year with!

   

I posted back in late October about how blind-and-deaf Ellie May, the elderly Cocker Spaniel who had recently arrived, had taken it upon herself to become my minion.  Well, months later, Ellie May has still not left my side … or my desk, where she spends most of her days.  She is a devoted little thing, always searching for me if I’m not at my desk.  She will go to all the closed doors in the house … front, back, closet, you name it … and scratch at the door, just certain that I am hidden behind it and someone needs to let me out.

Absolutely the most joyful thing that happens to Ellie May is when I magically reappear in my office.  She does a little wiggle-butt dance and then throws herself over on her bed under the desk, rolling and rolling in sheer happiness.  "He’s back! He’s back!"  This happens so fast that I have never been able to get a photo of it until today.  By the time I get the camera out, turn it on, take the lens cap off, aim and … it’s over.  I’m not sure how I got the photo this time — maybe I was a bit faster on the draw and she a bit slower on the roll.

So that’s Ellie May above, rolling with joy after I came back into my office from barn chores this morning.  This isn’t a once-a-day event, either.  Ellie May will flop over and roll with joy every time she finds me again … even if the absence has been a mere 10 minutes.  (Just for the record:  None of Alayne’s legions of minions does this.  So there.)

Yes, that’s blind Widget again, looking completely decadent on the morning after.  As usual, we don’t know what went on in her cottage overnight, but she definitely looked a little … shall we say … hung-over.  This clearly isn’t presenting Widget at her finest moment.  I said to her as I was taking the photo, "You should just see yourself now, Widget."  (She didn’t appreciate the blind dog joke.)

To leave you with a better impression, here she was the evening before in the very same chair, singing her very own Christmas carol in this 45-second clip:

As a Christmas gift for the dogs, a wonderful friend and supporter of the sanctuary sent a box of 40 Lambiedoodles — a soft chew toy sheep with a squeaker inside.  That’s one Lambiedoodle for every dog!  We handed them out on Christmas Day, and here are some of the photos we took Christmas night.  That’s Bailey above, looking terribly guilty with his Lambiedoodle.  Definitely a Dachshund-in-the- headlights look there.

Here are blind Goldie and Belvie, each giving their Lambiedoodles a work-over:

And not to be outdone, here’s Birdie with her sheepie friend:

I’m pleased to report that on the day after Christmas, there were still some Lambiedoodles left!