Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Judging from the number of emails and blog comments I’ve been getting, it seems I’m overdue with news about blind Cinder and her babies.  We had an update in our September email newsletter we sent out last week, but I forgot I hadn’t posted anything on the blog.

It’s official:  only two kittens!  We did an ultrasound on Cinder last Tuesday, which showed no more kittens inside.  Whew.  As worried as we were over the one-kitten-every-24-hours delivery pace, we are relieved we didn’t have a litter of eight kittens.  (As is Cinder, needless to say!)

In keeping with our ‘fire’ theme, we named the tortoiseshell kitten Spark and the gray kitten Ash.

We’re happy to report that Cinder, Spark and Ash are all doing fine!

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The last of our original Seattle cats, Missy, died today in our vet clinic in Helena.  We’ve had her for ten years, after getting her from a cat rescue group that hadn’t been able to adopt her out.  Missy had short, twisted back legs, a stumpy, Z-shaped tail, and she kind of waddled like a drunk rabbit.  The rescue group told us that people would be interested in adopting her … until they saw her.  Then they’d pick another cat.

A week ago, when our vet Dr. Brenda Culver was here doing the annual cat health day, we had tried to draw blood and urine from Missy.  She had been drinking a lot of water again, which made me suspect a urinary tract infection or kidney problems.  We had gone through this about two months ago — I was convinced she was in chronic renal failure — but it turned out she had a simple urinary tract infection.  Antibiotics had cleared it up.  So when she started her excessive water consumption, Brenda and I thought it might be another UTI.  But Missy didn’t cooperate, and Brenda took her back to the clinic with her.

Lab tests seemed to indicate another urinary tract infection, and by Wednesday we planned to head to Helena to pick her up.  But that morning Brenda called and said Missy had suddenly taken a turn for the worse.  She didn’t want to eat and seemed lethargic.  Brenda wanted to keep her at the clinic to monitor her.  On Thursday Missy hadn’t improved, and Brenda called to ask if they could do some additional tests, along with ultrasound. 

Yesterday (Friday) afternoon, she called to say they had discovered Missy had an aggressive mast cell tumor and the cancer cells had spread throughout her body.  Missy didn’t have long to live, maybe only a few days.  I sat in the chair, holding the phone, processing the news. 

Missy had always been a sickly little thing. We had already removed all of her teeth because of a chronic stomatitis infection, and she had been on long-term steroid therapy to keep the stomatitis at bay.  That suppressed her immune system, leaving her susceptible to recurring respiratory infections.   At one point we had to move her out of the cat house and into one of the dog cottages because she kept picking up every bug the other cats might have, even if they were sub-clinical and showed no signs of illness.  Ironically, in recent months she had been as healthy as we’d ever known her.

And now this.

Then, last night about 8 p.m., Brenda called back to say Missy had deteriorated.  Brenda and her husband Britt Culver, our internal medicine specialist there, had given her a blood transfusion and other supportive therapy earlier in the evening, but Missy’s prognosis was grim.  Brenda thought she would make it through the night.  I told her I’d head to Helena in the morning to be with Missy.

So this morning I drove the 70 miles to Helena.  Before I left, though, Brenda called to say Missy was starting to have seizures, a sign the cancer had just spread to her brain.  They had injected her with Valium to control the seizures, and Brenda wanted me to know what to expect when I arrived.

That’s what you see in the photo.  This is what Missy looked like when I got there.  This sweet little cat was pretty much gone — she was zoned out from the Valium and didn’t recognize I was there.  I sat in a chair by her cage and petted her, crying the whole time.  (I’m always an emotional wreck when it comes to this.)  Even if Missy didn’t know I was there, it’s so important to Alayne and me that one of us is always there at the very end for our animals.  At some level I think they do know, even in a condition like Missy’s.

Finally, I told Brenda I was ready … and I could tell Missy was ready too.  Brenda slowly injected the euthanasia drug into the IV in Missy’s front leg, and as I held her head, Missy slipped away.

Here’s a photo I took yesterday evening while Alayne, Mariah and I were in Lena’s Barn finishing up the chores.  Our three barn cats began arranging themselves very artistically on the grain sacks behind us as we stood there talking.  I had just taken the other photo of the three blind horses with their heads in the feed tub (see post below), so I still had the camera in my hands.

These three cats are all from the same litter that we got from a neighbor the year after we moved to Ovando.  (We since convinced them to let us spay the momma cat.)  Our first winter here we had lots of mice and other critters in the barn, and knew we needed some professionals to help with rodent control.

When they arrived as kittens, we first "homed" them in one of our animal cottages so they’d get very comfortable with people and dogs.  Once they got full-grown, we moved them out to Lena’s Barn for barn cat duty. 

That’s Skitter on the left, sister Smudge in the middle, and brother Smoke on the right.  (He’s the world’s most handsome barn cat.)  Let’s face it, these are not your typical barn cats.  They’re fed twice a day, have an igloo dog house in the barn with a heated bed for winter, and absolutely love people.  Our visitors and volunteers are frequently peeling these cats off them because they enjoy being held and cuddled so much. 

Watching yet another surprised visitor fend off the affections of one of these three, we say, "Ah, yes, that’s one of our stand-offish barn cats.  They just don’t like people for some reason."

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I took this photo this evening while we were out feeding the horses.  The pasture grass is brown and dry this time of year, which means it’s also low in protein, so we feed the horses some hay after we bring them back from pasture at the end of the day.  I’ve always liked this view of the three horse heads in the feed tub, and I remembered to take my camera this time!

Those heads belong to blind Nikki the two-year old on the left, blind Lena the Quarter Horse mare in the middle, and blind Destiny the yearling.  Nikki arrived as a four-month old and Destiny arrived at the age of four weeks, so Lena helped "raise" them, along with our beloved old mule, Lonesome George.  (George, the best nanny mule ever, died earlier this year from cancer.)  Now these three girls are inseparable, but Lena still helps keep the sometimes rambunctious youngsters in check for us.

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When our vet Dr. Brenda Culver came last Friday for our annual "cat day," she also brought three animals back from the clinic:  Claude the blind Great Dane puppy, Spirit the paralyzed Yorkie, and Oscar the elderly, deaf miniature Dachshund.  We got so caught up with Cinder the pregnant blind cat over the weekend I forgot I hadn’t posted medical updates on these three.

Claude

It turns out that Claude has something called carpal laxity syndrome, which is weakness in the carpal ligaments.  This is why he is still somewhat flat-footed, which contributes to his hunched appearance.  The good news is that he should grow out of it.  It certainly doesn’t bother him at all, as you can see from these photos Alayne took.  The first shot shows him sleeping on the cot by the ramp leading to our back door.  (We built the ramp for our geriatric gang who struggled with even the two steps up to the door.)

And here’s the close-up photo of that big squishy Dane nose smooshed right up against the post.  I don’t know about you, but I’d have a hard time sleeping like that!  We have several cots with beds on them scattered around the yard, and they are Claude’s favorite places to snooze.

Spirit

As for Spirit the little Yorkie with the paralyzed front legs, it turns out that her slurpy, noisy breathing is not from fistulas (or channels) running from her mouth into her nasal cavities.  Unfortunately, X-rays showed she had suffered trauma to her face at some point in the past.  (Not surprising, given her history of abuse.)  The blows broke the catacomb-like (or sponge-like) turbinate bones that divide the nasal airway into separate air passages.  The broken turbinates disrupt the airflow, causing the congested sound we hear when she breathes.  Brenda says that Spirit will be okay and that surgery is not required, but it’s hard to imagine this little thing getting hit in the face that hard.  It just makes us cringe.

Oscar

Oscar the mini Doxie’s oral surgery went fine, but his echocardiogram revealed a change in his heart rhythm.  This means that down the road he will most likely need a pacemaker.  Yes, you read that right: a pacemaker.  <Sigh>  We’ll need to recheck his heart every few months to monitor this, but Brenda thought we had a while to go before taking that step.

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As for Cinder … still only two kittens as of Monday morning!  She remains very big, so if there’s not another kitten waiting for us Tuesday morning, we’re taking her in for X-rays to find out what’s going on inside.

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We discovered early Saturday morning that blind Cinder finally had kittens.  Well, only one.  And she didn’t want anything to do with it.  Uh oh.

We had Cinder staying in our isolation cottage, and when we checked on her that morning, we found a tiny kitten lying by itself in the one place in the cottage NOT covered in bedding.  Cinder was meowing by the door, prancing about and purring loudly, much more interested in human attention than in her hours-old baby.

When we brought the kitten over to her, she promptly bit into it, hard.  The kitten shrieked.  I flicked Cinder on the head with my finger to get her to let go and jerked it away.  Cinder hissed at me.  This from a cat who had never done anything but purr.  I could tell we were off to a bad start in the maternity ward!

Cinder wanted no part of the kitten, let alone nurse it.  Alayne found some kitten milk replacer in the kitchen, so she brought a bottle with the formula out to the cottage and we began feeding the kitten.  After the kitten drank from the bottle, we tried to put her back with Cinder, but no dice.  She hissed at it.  "Not mine, never seen it before in my life!"

Oh, brother.  We knew the baby needed mother’s milk right away for the colostrum, and at this rate she wasn’t going to get it.

Cinder was still huge, and clearly there were more kittens inside.  But why hadn’t she delivered them?

I called our vets in Helena and spoke with Dr. Jennifer Rockwell, who was on duty Saturday morning.  Jennifer assured me that it could be hours between kittens and not to worry … yet.  She suggested I try milking Cinder — "if she’ll let you" — both to get some of the colostrum-laden milk for the baby, and also to help jump-start some of the maternal hormones that obviously hadn’t kicked in yet.

About this time our volunteers began arriving, so Laura W. from Helena offered to help me, yes, milk the cat.  That’s what we’re doing in the first photo that Alayne took.  Amazingly, Cinder let us do it.  She actually continued to purr while I gently pulled and squeezed on her nipples, but would squirm when it got to  be too much.  We never did get very much milk — and as much cat hair as milk ended up in the measuring cup I was using to collect it.  Yet after several minutes of playing feline dairy farmers, we realized that Cinder was tolerating this so well we should get the kitten and see if we could get her to latch on to a nipple while we held Cinder still. 

Alayne and Laura held Cinder down while I guided the kitten to the milk bar.  I had to squeeze some milk out first, then make the nipple "pop" (or stand up) so the kitten would have an easier time of grabbing it.  But grab it she did!  It took a long time for Cinder to relax, but she finally did, and that’s when Alayne was able to step back and take this photo.

It wasn’t until 7 p.m. last night that Cinder began to show genuine maternal interest and affection for her baby, and that’s when we finally were able to leave the kitten alone with her.  Whew! 

This morning when we got up, we found kitten number 2 had been born overnight.  That baby is doing fine, too, and Cinder is mothering both babies very well.  We think she still has more to go, so we’ll see what Monday morning holds!

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Dr. Brenda Culver, our primary care vet from Montana Veterinary Specialists in Helena, came out today for our annual health exam and vaccination day for the cats.  (Brenda was here a month ago for the dogs.  You can see that post here.)  In this photo Brenda is doing a heart check on wobbly Mink, while wobbly Wobbles waits his turn below.

When we finished with all the cats in the cat house, plus the barn cats, Brenda and I went to check on blind Cinder, our new arrival who turned out to be already pregnant when we got her.  And now she’s VERY pregnant … as you can see from this photo!  We have Cinder in our isolation cottage, which Mariah has outfitted as a comfy maternity ward.

Brenda says Cinder is due any day now, which is a good thing.  Every morning when we look in on Cinder and find no kittens, we tell her, "Hurry up, we’re tired of waiting!"

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Here are blind Widget and blind Callie, snoozing away on a cot behind our dining room table.  Yes, both of these girls are on a strict diet.  And no, it’s not having much effect, as you can see!  If these two were in a band, it would have to be called The Plumpettes.

The interesting thing about this photo is that Widget is really not into sharing — food, bed space, or anything else.  Usually she tries to intimidate the other dogs, no matter what their size, into vacating the bed they’re on so she can have it.  I don’t know whether she tried this with Callie and failed, or just decided she wanted to curl up with another plump lady.

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Mariah took three dogs to the vet today that spanned the range of breeds at the ranch, from smallest to largest.  She’s holding Oscar the miniature Dachshund, who is going in for dental work and oral surgery.  In the crate on the left is little Spirit the paralyzed Yorkie, also due for dental work. 

On the right is Claude the blind Great Dane puppy, who was scheduled for an orthopedic and neurological exam by our internal medicine specialist in Helena, Dr. Britt Culver.  We’ve become increasingly concerned as we’ve watched Claude grow in the past few weeks.  Danes can be prone to spinal and orthopedic development issues, and we’re worried by how his body is developing.

The rescue group that first pulled him from the Sacramento animal shelter told us that he was very flat-footed when they got him, but he had improved by the time he arrived here thanks to a proper diet.  (Some of the orthopedic development problems occur because people feed these giant breed puppies a diet with too much protein, leading to bigger and heavier bodies than their young bones and muscles can support.)  Although Claude is still a bit flat-footed, our main concern now is that his spine is becoming more curved, and his shoulders and hips are lower than the center of his back.  He was pretty much like this when he came, but not only has he not improved, we think it’s becoming a bit more pronounced.  Hence the need for a comprehensive exam.

So Mariah drove the gang the 70 miles to Helena and reviewed their issues with the vet staff before making the return trip to the ranch.  Brenda Culver, our primary care vet and Britt’s wife, will bring Oscar, Spirit and Claude back on Friday when she comes out to do the annual exams on the cats.

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Lori and Chad Holbein, owners of Doggon’ Wheels in Bozeman, Montana, came out to the ranch today to measure Spirit for her wheelchair.  (See our post about Spirit’s arrival here.)  I took the photo of Chad and Lori measuring Spirit in our welcome center.  If I recall correctly, I think Spirit’s chest — the distance between her two front legs — measured a whopping two inches!

Lori and Chad wanted to see how she moved with her front end paralyzed, which would help them determine what type of chair to manufacture for her. Spirit didn’t want to walk on the linoleum floor in the welcome center — even on the mat — so we took her outside and put her on the grass.  Sure enough, that’s what she wanted.  Off she went, hopping and sliding face-first.  That was enough for Lori and Chad to see how her back legs moved, and that she clearly had enough strength to propel a wheelchair.

It will be a week or two before Spirit’s new wheels are ready, and we’ll let you know when she gets ready to roll for the first time!

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