Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Here are two recent arrivals we’re delighted to introduce … on the left is Alicia M., our new employee, and on the right is Brody, an old blind Lab who came to us late last week from a rescue group in Pennsylvania.  I figured this would be a two-for-one bonus blog post!

Alicia joined us a couple of weeks ago.  She’s originally from Lewistown, Montana, but was working in Havre, Montana before moving out to the ranch to start working.  Alayne and I have been going it alone for quite some time — since October, in fact — so we’re ready for some help.

(The two employees we had last fall didn’t work out … one read the writing on the wall and quit after 13 days, the other one we terminated soon thereafter.  After that experience, we decided we’d rather get back to doing everything by ourselves for awhile — no matter what the workload!)

Alicia’s Mom saw our employment ad in her local paper and set it aside.  When Alicia came home the following weekend, her Mom showed her the ad and said, "There’s your dream job!"  Well, one thing led to another, and here she is!  Alicia is a former high school athlete and college volleyball player, so she can handle anything we throw her way.  She’s also just terrific with the animals, and they respond to her in kind.  Alicia has already started giving injections to horses, so she’s willing to tackle all sorts of new things.

I took these photos late Saturday afternoon, after a long day of chores.  Not working that day was Brody, who spent the day lounging on his cot in his private yard, outside our isolation cottage.  He flew into Missoula from Philadelphia late Thursday night, and he and I arrived back at the ranch about 1:30 a.m. Friday morning.  He came to us from a rescue group in State College, Pennsylvania, Pets Come First, which had pulled him from a local shelter.  He had been found in a snowstorm wandering as a stray.  No one came to the shelter to claim him.

The rescue originally named him Old Yeller, and while we worked out travel arrangements, he went to a foster home arranged by Cindy McClellen of Rescue Our Furry Friends in Lewistown, Pennsylvania.  After we agreed to take him, Pets Come First posted a photo of Old Yeller on their Web site with the headline, "Old Yeller gets accepted at the ‘Harvard’ for blind dogs!"

It was Alicia’s idea to name him Brody, so I thought it was appropriate to take their photo together.  He is such an incredibly sweet dog … he loves to shake hands, and he will roll over for a belly rub as soon as you approach him.  It’s impossible to imagine this gentle, adorable fellow roaming as a stray in a snowstorm — he is totally blind, can’t see a thing — and even harder to understand why no one would try to find him and bring him home. 

But we’re thrilled to have Brody here, where we have lots of other blind Labs — just none of the "Yeller" kind!  Once he finishes his two-week quarantine period in our isolation cottage, he’ll get to meet the rest of the blind Lab gang.

Thanks to everyone who helped save this old boy!

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This afternoon we took our 9-month old blind foal Brynn out to meet our 5-week old blind foal Cash for the first time.  We had planned to do this earlier, but we’re in the "big melt" right now and our corrals are too icy and muddy for these little guys.  (This is our two-week "ick" period each spring, when if you’re not standing in mud, you’re standing on ice.)  So we took them out to a nearby pasture where they could meet each other in the round pen and start the "getting to know you" thing. 

I turned Brynn loose in the round pen and then brought Cash up to her, so they were nose to nose.  At first neither one knew what to make of the other … they sniffed and sniffed ("hmm. horse. I think. hmm") … and then little Cash reared up on his hind legs, front feet in the air, and spun to the left.  That startled Brynn, of course, who wheeled around and spun off in the other direction. 

This was Cash’s first encounter with another horse other than his momma, so we’re going to let the introduction occur slowly over several days. After the nose-to-nose in the pen, I put Brynn’s lead rope back on her and we led both of them out.  I stood there for a while, in between them, while they sniffed each other again.  Then all three of us posed for Alayne so she could take this photo!

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This was the scene from inside Widget’s House this evening, just before we let the dogs in for dinner.  Of course, the anticipation is more than they can stand, so there’s a lot of energy at that front door. 

Starting in the lower left, that’s blind Bud staring in the window; old blind Peabody the German Shepherd is behind him, milling around through the crowd; and just above Peabody on the left is deaf Tyler with half of his face showing.

Blind Dusty the white husky is the sentinel figure in the background; Shiloh is the dog looking over his shoulder; and blind Pepper with the puppy-like ears is the black-and-tan looking in the window, too.

This grouping at the window changed constantly as I was taking photos; at various times blind Stoney and blind Emmy Lou were also in the scene, but when I took this photo, they had moved off to the side.  Peabody would also circle around, come up to the door, stare in the window for a brief moment, then wander off again.

Because of the pent-up energy and eagerness to come inside for dinner, we always make the dogs sit and stay before we let them in the door,
one by one.  That helps maintain order, teaches manners and patience,
and keeps us from getting knocked on our rear ends by a group of blind
dogs charging through the door all at once!

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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 know her actual age, but we’d guess she has to be at least ten years old by now.  Yet she still has a puppy-like love of toys. 

She’s fine with the hand-me-downs, by the way.  Kenai has no interest in squeakers, so after Goldie gets done making a surgical incision in a new toy to extract and kill the squeaker, there’s still a perfectly good toy for Kenai to shred.  Kenai’s joy is in pulling all the stuffing out until there’s nothing left but the fabric shell.  Sometimes we’ll hear a "pfffft … pfffft!" coming from the living room, and it’s Kenai trying to spit the stuffing out of her mouth. 

So that’s what caught Alayne’s attention … not only was Kenai not ripping this particular toy apart, she was content to gently hold it in her mouth indefinitely.  Maybe it was her inner Lab finally at work?

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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 Tails To You," and the size is 55" x 70".  Here’s a photo of what it looks like.  (Note:  The animals pictured in the quilt are not from the sanctuary.)

Last year the tickets were only sold locally.  But after we posted a photo of the quilt and the raffle drawing on the blog, we had some blog readers ask if they would have the opportunity to purchase tickets for a future quilt raffle.  Barbara kindly agreed, so here are the details she provided:

• There are 200 tickets for sale at $5.00 each.
• 100% of the ticket sale money goes to the Rolling Dog Ranch.
• Make checks payable to Barbara Edwards and mail them to Barbara at P.O. Box 104, Seeley Lake, Montana, 59868.
• All raffle ticket stubs will be filled out with the information you send with your check (name, address and phone number).
• If you want your portion of the ticket mailed to you, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope with your check to Barbara.
• Ticket purchases must be postmarked no later than March 31, 2007.
• Any funds received after 200 tickets have been sold will be turned over to the Rolling Dog Ranch as a donation and your name will be entered in next year’s drawing.
• The drawing will be held as soon as 200 tickets are sold and we’ll announce the winner on the blog.

Please note that this raffle is not being run by the sanctuary but by Barbara personally.  We do not have any tickets to sell here at the ranch, nor can we take credit card or online donations to purchase a raffle ticket.

Thank you, Barbara!

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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 once-formidable giant bear, now only a rag of its former self, to the new giant caterpillar, Bailey wants to dominate the big guys.  He does play with smaller toys, but nothing gets his competitive juices going like a few rounds with the giant toys.

We were feeding the dogs this evening when we suddenly noticed the caterpillar being dragged across the living room floor.  We looked around the corner and saw Bailey with a mouthful of caterpillar, lugging it over to his favorite dog bed.  (This was Pappy’s bed, which Bailey has now taken over.  Have you noticed how small dogs prefer the extra-large beds, too?) 

The caterpillar recently arrived in a big box of soft toys that Heather D. from New Hampshire was kind enough to mail to us — thanks, Heather!

I went to the office and got the camera.  As soon as Bailey saw I was ready to take photos, he started giving the caterpillar a beating.  (He loves to show off for the camera.)  In the first photo he’s delivered some solid body blows, right in the mid-section.  In the second photo he’s shaking the daylights out of the caterpillar (notice Dachshund ears in motion).  In the third photo, the creepy caterpillar has been flipped upside down and finally subdued.  Our exhausted warrior Dachshund is taking a break by triumphantly resting his head on the caterpillar’s body. 

Elapsed time on battlefield: approximately 45 seconds.

Bailey will stay like this quite a while, often falling asleep in the process.  Because of his spinal problem, he typically can’t stand or sit still without his back legs cycling, and for some reason propping his head on a toy or pillow helps keep his legs still.  We haven’t figured that one out yet, but it works for him!

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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 team of people who have provided such fabulous care for our little girl.  Prudence is graduating in May and has already passed her boards, so she’s about to begin her new career as a veterinarian.

By the way Brynn was carrying on with Prudence, it was clear she had really bonded with her caregivers here.  In the second photo below, Prudence is scratching Brynn’s back in her ‘sweet spot,’ which feels so good that Brynn makes funny faces with her lips and mouth.  We always know when we hit that sweet spot because Brynn’s mouth starts going into overdrive.

Brynn’s surgery was a success … this evening we watched as she peed three times like a normal mare!  I could not believe how great her backside and thighs looked.  Where once she had been covered in urine scalds, with the skin raw and peeling, she now had smooth skin.  I was thrilled to see her squat and thrust to pee like any regular mare would do.  In fact, Prudence said she had never seen Brynn pee so many times so quickly, which made me wonder if Brynn was just showing off … "Look, Dad, I can really pee now!"

The surgeon, Dr. Claude Ragle, told me last week that Brynn had sprung
a small leak in her urethral extension, but that we could fix it in
another month or so.  Because her sutures are still present and the tissue
is healing, going in now to fix her leak might cause some of those
sutures to rupture.  So the best course is to let everything heal up
and then bring her back to close up the hole.  Prudence said Brynn appears to be leaking when she’s lying down and sleeping, and then it kind of pools a little under her flanks.  But that is much easier to deal with and clean than the constant dribbling she used to do, which ran down her rear end and legs and between her thighs.

There is still a risk that the urethral extension could cause urine
to start backing up her ureters into her kidneys, so we will need to
run weekly blood panels on Brynn for the next few months to check her
kidney values.  But so far her blood panels — including one they ran
today — show her kidney values remain normal. 

What I saw this evening is a 100% improvement on what she was like when she arrived a month ago — so we are incredibly relieved at the outcome and thoroughly impressed with the world-class medical care Brynn received here.  We wanted to thank Dr. Ragle, Dr. Kristin Gablehouse, senior vet tech Teri Olson, and the rest of the WSU team that cared for Brynn.   She was in great hands for the past month.

Alayne and I also wanted to thank everyone again who contributed to Brynn’s medical fund.  Without those  generous gifts, Brynn’s surgery would not have been possible.  We called her fund "A New Day For Brynn," and those donations accomplished exactly that.  On behalf of our blind girl, thank you so much!

And when Brynn gets back to the ranch tomorrow afternoon, she’ll find a little buddy waiting for her … blind baby Cash!

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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 in and out, Willie’s head would go up and down … and he would snore as he did so.  Thus the snoring had this weird rising and falling cadence to it. 

I hurried back to the office to get the camera and returned to get this photo.  As soon as I turned the camera on and pressed the shutter, the flash opened up with a <ping!> sound, which woke Willie up.  That’s why he’s looking in my direction.  But once I got my shots and walked away, he went back to sleep … fortunately this time without the snoring!

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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 to the ranch around 11 p.m.  Alayne took this photo of me with Cash this afternoon.

Cash was born on February 7 on a breeding farm in northern Alabama.  The couple who run the farm contacted us when Cash was 4 days old, after they realized he was blind.  Cash has a very rare eye disorder called aniridia, in which the irises don’t develop.  The couple felt they could not keep the foal, and believed they had no option other than to euthanize him if we couldn’t help.

We are always very reluctant to  take a foal away from the mare at such an early age — normal weaning is at 4 to 6 months.  But as our vets tell us … if the foal is healthy and vigorous and has a zest for life … and if the alternative is euthanasia … then it’s a risk worth taking.  We’ve had to do it before, with blind Destiny who came from South Carolina also at the age of 4 weeks.

With a contribution from the breeder and his wife, and a gift from a generous supporter in British Columbia, we were able to afford the cost of shipping Cash all the way to Montana.

So we held our breath as Cash made his big trip across the country.  He received excellent care from the folks at Bob Hubbard Horse Transportation.  They were understandably nervous at first about transporting such a young foal without its momma, but after we explained the circumstances and assured them we understood the risks involved, they got behind this adventure in a big way.  Cash was in wonderful hands during the entire trip with drivers Chuck and Miriam.

Cash’s first day in Montana was warm and sunny, despite all the snow you see in the photos!  He has a great appetite and is nibbling on hay and drinking his mare milk replacer.  Alayne took this photo of me with Cash late this afternoon after he had just finished a quart of milk in his stall. 

We can tell he’s one smart little boy, and he quickly figures out his environment and starts mapping his boundaries right away.  He’s calm and centered, and you can see him really thinking when he encounters something he’s not sure about.

The arrival of a blind baby like Cash helps keep the "cycle of life" going for us.  Having just lost our beloved old German Shepherd Pappy last Thursday, it seemed fitting that a little disabled youngster would arrive just a few days later, full of life and energy and ready to be loved.

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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 version has three photos to go along with the story.