Rolling Dog Farm Blog

I drove into Missoula today to pick up blind Hannah and Cash the blind foal from our equine vet clinic.  I took this photo of Alayne with Hannah and Cash after we unloaded them back at the ranch late this afternoon.  (Hannah is a BIG girl, as you can see!)

Hannah had her second eye removed because it was chronically inflamed and painful.  We had to take out her right eye last year for the same reason.  As it turns out, Hannah’s "gal pal" Luna also has no eyes either — we had to remove both of them right after she arrived last year because they were painful, too.  So the two of them will now be a matched pair.

Cash had his hernia repaired and was also gelded (neutered).  Our equine vet says gelding a horse is like giving it a brain transplant because without all that testosterone, the horse can … um … well, think much more clearly.

In any case, both Hannah and Cash were glad to be back home.  After taking the photo, we walked them down to Beauty’s Barn, which you see in the background.

This was another scene outside our front door … that’s blind Nevada the puppy sleeping on, under and around her friend, wobbly Soba.  (Kind of a 360-degree sleep-a-thon.)  Nevada loves to wrestle with Soba and her sister Noodle.  I suspect they were going all out with some roughhousing until Nevada got tired and simply quit to take a nap. 

But nap time didn’t last long, because while I was still shooting, Soba decided to start nibbling at Nevada to get things going again.  Soba was probably saying to her, "C’mon, kid, I’m tired of being a mattress for you!"

(Click on photo for larger image.)

I looked out the front door after feeding the dogs breakfast the other morning and saw this scene … blind Willie keeled over, the empty food dish not far from where the body lay sprawled on the ground.

I assume he was sleeping off breakfast, but since I can’t bay and he can’t speak English, I couldn’t ask him.  But in any language you’d call this a ridiculous sleeping position.  (If you’re keeping count, this one is No. 50.)

Now, me personally, I would have selected the thick, cool grass to lie down on, not the hard-packed bare ground.  But maybe that was as far as he could make it from the breakfast bowl before being overcome by the urge to keel over and bare all.  Who knows?

(Click on photo for larger image.)

This morning after I turned our blind foal Cash loose in the corral with his Aunt Lena and Cousin Destiny, I looked over and noticed a bulge on his abdomen, just in front of his sheath.  It looked like a small balloon hanging there.  Uh oh.

I called Alayne over to hold him while I checked it out.  The "balloon" was his skin filled with a very soft, fluid-like substance.  I worked my finger into it and soon realized there was a hole in Cash’s abdomen.  Ah, the hernia!  Yes, we knew he had a small hernia … our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, found it during his medical exam when Cash first arrived.  The plan at that point was to wait for Cash to get a bit older to geld him (for non-horse people, that’s a neuter!) and close the hernia at the same time while he’s under anesthesia.

But he should NOT have anything protruding through the hernia.  This was new, and a bad sign.

Bill was already in the field and scheduled to come out here late this afternoon.  He was going to do surgery on blind Hannah’s remaining eye (it’s now chronically inflamed and we need to remove it), and also examine our Belgian draft horse Beaver, who has a growth on his abdomen.

I called Bill about our discovery.  "Oh no," he said.  "That’s not good."  He was afraid Cash suddenly had intestine sticking out, which is extremely serious and even fatal if it became perforated. 

Bill got here as soon as he could, and sure enough, it was Cash’s intestine we were feeling inside that balloon of skin.  Bill gently pushed it back in and then ran big loops of Elasticon tape around Cash’s abdomen to help hold it in until he could get him into surgery.  I took the photo of Alayne with Cash just before we loaded him into Bill’s trailer for the trip to Missoula.  Given the nature of the surgery, Bill wanted to do it at his clinic rather than out here, and as soon as possible.

After we loaded Cash in the trailer I put Hannah on board, too, so Bill could do her surgery at his clinic tomorrow.  (Meanwhile we also did a biopsy of Beaver’s growth.)

Bill called this evening to say Cash’s operation went well … the hernia is closed and Cash is now a gelding.

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Our fabulous volunteer Kate W. from Missoula adopted blind Luke this weekend.  I took the photo just before Kate took him home on Saturday.  This morning Kate emailed to say Luke was doing just great, and she added, "He’s such a love …. Boy, does he cuddle.  He likes to be right up close and personal with you!"

Yesterday she took Luke around her yard a few times on a leash to help him make a "mental map" of his new environment, and then she turned him loose.  Kate wrote that "he’s confident enough to just walk around and explore."  So far, no accidents in the house, and he lets Kate know when he needs to go outside.  Today Kate took him for a walk in Greenough Park in Missoula, and Luke loved getting out and about.  He did really well on a leash.

Tonight, when I called Kate to see how the day went, she said Luke was lying next to her, resting one paw on her while she talked on the phone.  He seems to have settled in just fine, I’d say!

Thank you, Kate, for adopting this special boy!

If you enjoyed the video of our blind foal Cash figuring out how to graze under the corral panels while lying down, you’ll appreciate this one, too.  Just two weeks ago we cross-fenced the huge 1-acre yard in the front of Widget’s House, dividing it into two smaller 1/2 acre yards.  This allows us to spread the dogs out into smaller groups.  (We have three other fenced yards behind and to the side of the building.)  Well, we soon noticed wobbly Allie was somehow managing to get back and forth between the two front yards.  The new fence and gate kept everyone else in their respective sections, but Allie was free to come and go as she pleased. 

A few days ago, we discovered how she did this.  Then I videotaped her doing it.

Now, as you’ll see in the video, Allie is truly one wobbly girl, and walking takes quite a bit of effort.  Yet despite her compromised motor skills, she is still able to get from Point A to Point B, regardless of whatever obstacle she finds.  In this case, the fence and gate keeping her from where she wants to be.

As you watch this, notice blind Peabody and blind Penny standing behind Allie.  It looks like Penny is saying to Peabody, "Hey, I wonder what she’s doing down there?"  You’ll also see blind Pepper come up to check out what Allie is doing.

(Oh … yes, Penny’s back!  Her adoption didn’t work out — new baby coming, as it happened — but Penny was so happy to be back at the ranch it made us feel guilty about adopting her out!)

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5205202838330253829&hl=en

I was waiting impatiently tonight at 9:15 p.m. for Google Video to finish processing a short clip I had uploaded 30 minutes ago when Alayne came into my office and motioned me towards the front door.  A few minutes earlier we had "emptied the house," as we call it, putting everyone outside for their last pit stop before bedtime. 

As usual, we got the "Who, me?" look from most of the dogs.  They prefer to hang around the front door, not convinced it’s really bedtime until either Alayne or I step outside to start putting them up in their cottages.  So this was the collection still waiting for us to come out.  I grabbed the camera and took the photo.

And since I am still waiting on Google Video — a rare glitch for them — to process the clip I was planning to post on the blog tonight, I thought I’d use this photo instead.

That’s deaf-and-blind Spinner on the far left, little Bailey the mini Doxie, behind him big blind Helen, then Birdie who has muscular dystrophy, Belvie the new mini Doxie, and wobbly Soba the Collie mix.  Up on the step is Daisy the mini Doxie, blind Callie the plump Doxie by the door, blind Willie the Beagle, and three-legged Cody hogging the entire landing.  Off camera to the right was Nevada the blind puppy, blind Brody, blind Evelyn and who-knows-who-else?

(Click on photo for larger image.)

We were heading out for afternoon barn chores today when we saw our blind foal Cash mowing the grass in his own unique way.  We kind of wondered how the grass was getting clipped so far from the corral panels.  Most horses will stand at the edge of a corral and stick their heads under the bottom rail to eat the nearby grass.  Cash, who is completely blind and has never seen other horses do it the "normal" way, figured out another approach.  His way definitely has its advantages!

And when he’s finished — which can take a while, since he likes to snooze off and on while dining — he just slides himself back under the corral panels.

Here’s a 40-second video I shot this afternoon.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=4895918042454458287&hl=en

I went over to Widget’s House this evening to help Alayne feed the dogs.  As I opened the gate you see in this photo to let blind Pepper and blind Emmy Lou through from their yard, deaf Tyler suddenly shot through the gate opening from the adjoining yard.  Pepper had already come through, but Emmy Lou heard Tyler thunder past and took off after him.  Emmy Lou can hear but she can’t get a fix on where the sound is coming from, so she went bounding off in Tyler’s general direction. 

It didn’t take her — or Tyler, for that matter — long before they realized that everyone else was going inside for dinner, and here they were, on the wrong side of the gate!  After getting the other dogs in, I came back out and saw Emmy Lou jumping up and down at the gate.  She was literally clearing three feet in some of her jumps.  I dashed into Widget’s House to get the camera.  By the time I got back outside she had quit jumping, but when she heard me call her name, she jumped again, just once.  I called her name.  She jumped again.  I called her name … and she jumped. 

I took 24 photos in quick succession (oh, thank heavens for a digital SLR camera!), each time calling her name, and each time I got a photo of her in the air.  I’m sure she was relieved when I finally decided I had the photo I wanted, because she looked like she was getting a little tired!

Tyler, meanwhile, wasn’t sure what Miss Jumping Bean was trying to prove.  All he knew was that he was still on the wrong side of the gate.

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Each spring our target date to start taking the horses out to pasture is June 1, although in practice this means we usually begin on Memorial Day weekend.  Because of our climate, it takes longer for the grass to "green up" and grow to a respectable length before we can turn the horses out for grazing.  We got a bit of a head-start today and took 16 of the horses out. 

We have to introduce them gradually to pasture after a winter of eating hay, because too much of this rich spring grass too soon can make them sick.  For right now, they will go out for a few hours at a time, and over the course of a couple of weeks their intervals on grass will get longer until they’re out for the entire day.

I took these two photos this afternoon when Alayne and I went out to bring in the "three blind girls," as we call them.  That’s Destiny on the left, Nikki in the middle, and Lena on the right.  (On the far right is blind Guadalupe.)  We were at the gate to their pasture and they heard us calling to them, which is why their heads are up and they’re looking in our direction.  Destiny is, um, always a little "off."

And a minute later, here they come, headed straight for us.  Destiny managed to re-set her gyroscope and got a course correction.  It really helps to have two other horses to follow, you know?

(Click on photos for larger image.)