Rolling Dog Farm Blog

I was over at Widget’s House, our main dog building, taking photos for our winter newsletter when deaf Tyler suddenly sprang to life, hopped on a dog cot, and pressed his nose against the wall.  And then he just stood there, motionless.  He must have remained like this for a full minute, which is a long time to have your nose plastered against a wall.

When he finally unhitched himself, I couldn’t see anything on the wall that got his attention.  Maybe it was a tiny bug he ate.  But Tyler is known to have a vivid imagination, so who knows?

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Our farrier, Rich Boyle, came out today to trim the horses’ hooves.  Rich comes every 6 to 8 weeks, and it takes about five and a half hours to do the Rolling Dog Ranch herd of 24 blind horses and 6 sighted ones.  In this photo Rich is working on our Belgian draft horse Rooster.  This enormous (2000 pounds!) sweet fellow came to us from the National Park Service, which could no longer use him because of a degenerative back problem.

We took regular horse halters out to the pasture by mistake, and they won’t fit these big boys, so Alayne simply looped the lead rope around Rooster’s neck.  Rooster and his brother Beaver are so gentle and well-trained that we hardly need to use restraint on them.  When I took this photo Alayne seemed to be looking "under the hood," for what I’m not sure!

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There’s something about heights that Travis, our dog with a fused jaw, just loves.  I took this photo yesterday in the paddock on the east side of Widget’s House.  Travis would much rather be ON something than IN it.  Like dog houses, for instance. 

We’ll look over from the main house and see Travis sitting just like this, perched on top of a dog house.  Never in it, mind you, only on top of it.  He’ll stay perched for quite a while, sunning himself and taking in the view.

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Here’s blind Willie, a Beagle who came to us a week ago from an Atlanta, Georgia, Beagle rescue group.  When we woke up today it was 13 degrees, far below the forecasted low for the night.  So when Alayne let Willie out of the isolation cottage this morning, she put a fleece doggie shirt on our little Southern boy to keep him warm.

Ironically, our high temperature for today — 54 degrees — turned out to be the low for Atlanta last night.  Willie was probably thinking, "Where did they send me — the Arctic?"

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Alayne took this photo of me spreading compost with our manure spreader this afternoon.  It’s that time of year, when the compost windrows have finished cooking and curing and can be spread on the pastures.  We have several days worth of spreading to do.  Then we’ll start dragging the fields with the chain harrow.  Fall is another way of saying "pasture maintenance."

The compost I was working with today started out as all the manure, bedding and hay we mucked out of the horse stalls last winter and spring.  By now it’s a wonderfully earthy, black, crumbly mixture that looks like soil … and it’s ready to be returned to the land.

That’s Widget’s House on the far left, then Beauty’s Barn, and in front of the tractor is Scout’s Barn.  Lena’s Barn is off to the right, along with some of our run-in sheds.  You can see our cottonwoods have started to lose their fall colors, and we’re already bracing for the next blast of cold — a low of 16 degrees forecast for Wednesday night! 

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I took this photo while Alayne and I were having lunch yesterday and being crowded by some uninvited guests.  That’s blind Evelyn on the left and blind Helen on the right.  Helen is Alayne’s office mate … she basically lives in Alayne’s office, and would rather be there than anywhere else.  But when she heard us at the lunch table yesterday, she quietly made her way down the hall, through the kitchen and up to the table — all without making a sound.  Evelyn is more vocal and demonstrative, and there’s nothing quiet about her when she wants something.   She’ll woof and dance and woof some more.

Now, the truth is that I am not very fond of being surrounded by expectant dogs at mealtime, all wanting a bite of whatever it is I’m eating.  With as many dogs as we have in the house at any one time, it can feel like you’re eating on stage in front of a very demanding audience.  So I don’t exactly encourage this, although I have (hmm) been known to have my weak moments.  Alayne is much more accommodating, and has never been known to discourage these guests from showing up.  Nor has she been known to ever resist giving in to these charming faces.  It might be that because she majored in Theater in college (that was B.L.S., ‘before law school’), she actually enjoys dining in front of an audience.  Who knows?

But in case you’re wondering, yes, both Evelyn and Helen got what they wanted.  Again.

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I was cleaning the cat house this morning when wobbly Mink climbed into the basket bed with deaf Snowball, presenting a perfect picture of the all-black cat next to the all-white cat.  I went to the house to get the camera, came back, and took this photo.

Once finished with the cats, I scooped poop in the dog yards, and when I returned … here was this sight outside our back door:  Claude the blind Great Dane puppy and three-legged Cody, snoozing side by side on their cots.  Another black & white moment.  I went and got the camera again. 

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Every night around 9 p.m., Alayne and I start the process for putting the dogs up for bedtime.  We begin in our own house, herding all the dogs outside for one last potty trip, and then take most of them to Birdie’s Cottage and Kelly’s Cottage where they sleep.  (About six sleep in our house.)  Once we get the cottage crew where they belong, I head over to Widget’s House to begin the same routine with the dogs there, while Alayne goes out to close up the barns and check on the horses.  (Every few months we alternate.)

Last night we got everyone out of the house except for these two, Spirit and Bailey.  They weren’t budging.  I clapped my hands, whistled, waved my arms, but got no response.  Neither one stirred.  Although Spirit’s front legs are paralyzed, she can move around whenever she wants, but now she was pretending her whole body was paralyzed.  I was just looking to her to sit up, then I’d put her in her wheelchair, but she ignored me completely.  Bailey, who stays in the house with us, never even moved his eyes, but just stared straight ahead.  I went to the office, got the camera, came back, and they were both still like this.

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I swear I wasn’t going to post yet another ‘Widget sleeping’ photo, but then this one came along today.  Alayne had taken a load of laundry out of the dryer late this morning (mostly dog bedding) and piled it on a living room chair to fold at lunch.  At some point when we weren’t paying attention, blind Widget climbed into the chair, scattered the laundry far and wide, and made herself a comfortable bed out of the mess.  There she remained for several hours. 

We told her (again), "Widget, you really need to get a job."

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I walked out the back door of our house yesterday afternoon and saw Claude the blind Great Dane puppy and blind and deaf Spinner sharing a dog cot.  Now, Claude is really into sharing … he loves to lay down next to other dogs, or as sometimes happens, right on top of them because he’s blind and huge and can’t see what he’s doing.  Some of our dogs are not necessarily into the sharing thing, Spinner being one of them, so I was really surprised to see her still on the cot with big Claude.

But they had obviously worked this out and were each holding about 50% of the cot, split diagonally.  Moments after I took the photo, Spinner smelled me in the vicinity (her nose is incredible and tells her everything) and got up to wander off to private lodging elsewhere.  Claude took the opportunity to stretch out and enjoy the whole cot by himself.

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