Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Here’s blind Emmy, who just arrived last week from North Carolina, checking out the fridge in the welcome center.  She is a delightful girl, and whirls and dances when she knows breakfast or dinner is coming her way.  We concluded she really isn’t deaf … she hears all kinds of sounds (as in, "they’re fixing my supper!").  Her issue is sometimes getting a fix on where the sound is coming from, so it’s more of a directional thing than actual hearing.

Alayne took her to our vets in Helena today because she’s had two really bad cases of diarrhea and vomiting since arriving … yet punctuated by days of no problems at all.  The intermittent nature of this rules out a lot of the usual suspects, including parvo, thank heavens!

We know she had a horrific case of worms in North Carolina — the vet there said Emmy had "every kind of worm" — and was treated for it.  Our vets here think that if she had a worst-case infestation, it’s possible some came back, so we wormed her again today and will give her another dose in two weeks.  We’ve already had her on the drug metronidazole for general intestinal ailments for the past two days.  Hopefully between the wormer and the metro we’ll get this licked. 

Meanwhile, Emmy continues to hang out at the welcome center, where we have her in isolation for two weeks.  She is just the sweetest thing, and springs to life when she realizes I’ve arrived to see her.  Emmy starts thumping her tail and then leaps into the air — in my general direction — to greet me.  Then she’ll bow down like she wants to play, and race around in circles.  This dog has sure come a long way from the frightened creature Mika first wrote us about in that original email.

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Susan S. from Missoula, who adopted blind Buddy a few weeks ago, emailed with another update on how he’s doing in his new home.  Here are some excerpts from her email:

"Every day I am so happy we adopted Buddy.  He is doing great.  He acts like he’s lived here all his life — trots around the back yard and walks around in the house like he can see everything.  But if I move, say, the water dish, look out!  Crash.  That will teach ME!  He’s already protective of the yard if strangers come around.  No one would ever be able to tell he’s blind (unless they read his name tag, since I added that info to it).

Buddy enjoys lying in the sun in the grass when it’s cool out, and when it gets too warm he seems to like our stone patio (picture attached).  He’s doing fine on a leash, although is understandably excited at first, and this past weekend he and I hiked up to the M with my "Little Sister," my match in the Big Brothers & Sisters program.  She and Buddy really like each other a lot.  The hike went very well but I noticed that the switchbacks seemed to confuse him.  He probably wondered why we stupid humans couldn’t just walk in a straight line to get where we’re going."

Thanks for giving Buddy such a wonderful home, Susan!

Our little blind two-year old filly, Nikki, had a big day on Friday with her wonderful trainer, Nichole Zupan.  Not only did Nichole introduce Nikki to having a bit in her mouth, but then came a saddle pad and finally, the saddle!  Through it all Nikki was calm and acted, well, almost bored.  Bear in mind that this was only her 6th day of training. 

After watching Nikki’s absolute ease at having a saddle on her back, Nichole was almost tempted to take the next step and climb aboard … but Nikki needed some more ground work first.  So the rest of Friday’s session focused on driving (essentially, using extra-long reins to guide and control Nikki from the ground so she’ll know how to respond with a rider in the saddle) and building more trust. 

I suspect this coming week we’ll have some video of Nikki being ridden for the first time.  But until then, here’s a short video clip of the saddle going on.  You’ll see Nichole already has the saddle pad on when the video starts (the saddle pad was a big yawn for Nikki, too); then she lets Nikki smell the saddle before easing it onto her back.  To me it’s remarkable that this blind filly is so calm and easy-going that she isn’t even tied up for her first time with a saddle, but she’s just standing loose in the round pen.

http://www.dropshots.com/dropshotsplayer.swf

I drove into Missoula late last night to pick up Emmy at the airport.  She arrived on a Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis, and had started her journey earlier in the day in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Emmy and I arrived back at the ranch at 1 a.m.

But her trip to the sanctuary really began on April 20, when we received an email about Emmy — then named Keller — from a dedicated rescuer named Mika V. in Asheville, North Carolina.  Here are excerpts from Mika’s email:

"Hello Steve and Alayne,

I was so happy when a friend of mine forwarded your website to me! I really need you guys! Three days ago a blind and deaf Catahoula was dropped off at my house by a relative of the original owners. She had saved this dog because the dog (named Keller by me) was in a pen her whole life, living in poop. The pen did not even have a door and needed to be cut open to get her out. Her food was thrown on the poop-covered ground. The owners wanted to have Animal Control pick her up, but AC said they would put down Keller because of her disabilities, and that’s when the niece stepped in and started an email campaign to find a foster. And here I am.

When she arrived she was understandably TERRIFIED. She wouldn’t come out of her crate and was shaking like a leaf. She was so pathetic, she crawled around on her belly when she left the crate (not often.) I wanted to cry every time I saw her. Of course I am being as loving and calming as I can with her and she’s licking my hands. Just ate a wee bit and drank.

She is sweet as pie, so sweet she lets me pick her up when she is too scared to walk, and she licks my hands and burrows into my lap to be closer. Poor girl. I have been leading her around with the leash and my hand in front of her nose so she knows it’s me.

She is the most docile dog ever. She has all the reason in the world to be non-trusting, and leave it to a dog….. she is the sweetest natured zen dog ever.

I need help! I am not an expert at rescuing blind and deaf dogs. I have no idea how to train her. Do you guys have room for one more? I would really like her to go to you, you seem to have such a nice place, small enough for her to get some individual attention."

Well, after a flurry of emails and calls, we agreed to take her.  Mika arranged and paid for the dog’s flight to Montana.  This is the crate Emmy arrived in.

Kathryn and Beth suggested naming her Emmy today, and Alayne agreed.  (As the only guy here, I find the wisest course of action is simply to agree to whatever they collectively decide.)

Emmy is every bit as sweet as Mika said she was.  She has definitely come out of her shell, and even last night she was ready to plow into a late supper before I put her to bed. 

It turns out that Emmy has some hearing, although just how much we can’t quite tell.  Mika had noticed her beginning to respond to some sounds.  It looks like she has no eyeballs … they’re just white inside, which remind us of our own blind and deaf Spinner, but Emmy’s eyes aren’t quite the same. 

She’s now staying in our new welcome center for her two-week isolation.  (This is the former cat house — we moved the cats to another cottage and converted the building to a welcome center for visitors.)  That’s where I took the first photo.  During the day she has an outdoor enclosure to enjoy, which is where I took this last photo of her late this afternoon.

Thanks to a wonderful and generous soul like Mika, sweet Emmy gets to enjoy a new life at the sanctuary.

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This is blind Babe, caught on camera doing exactly what we don’t know.  Beth captured this moment for us.  When I saw the photo, I thought, "Jeez, I should really blog that," but how do I describe what she’s doing?

Babe, who just recently came to us from Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service, has become quite a character here.  She’s now over at Widget’s House and is having a blast.  I bet this was just an attention-grabber.  Babe knew all the other dogs were milling around Beth, and maybe she thought, "I’ll do something irresistible, they’ll take my photo AND I’ll get a tummy rub out of it, too!"

Clever girl!

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Now that it’s finally spring in the northern Rockies, the new season brings with it a lot of pasture and grounds maintenance work.  We’ve been busy scraping out the winter build-up of horse manure from the corrals and building new compost piles.  The compost will "cook" over the spring and early summer as we turn it every few weeks.  Then it will cure for a few months and be ready to spread in the fields by fall.  In addition to corral cleaning, we’re also dragging the fields with the tractor and chain harrow.  That’s what Kathryn was doing this afternoon when I took these photos.

The chain harrow breaks up and scatters the manure clumps in the pastures, helping distribute this good source of natural fertilizer more evenly across the fields.  Breaking up the clumps also helps destroy internal parasites in the manure by exposing them to the sun’s ultraviolet rays.  And dragging assists in dethatching the ground, making it easier for new grass to come up and easier for nutrients to reach the soil. 

With 13 pastures spread across our 160 acres, there’s plenty of dragging to be done!

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This weekend we welcomed a new arrival to the ranch:  O.J. the wobbly cat.  She came to us from the Bitterroot Humane Association in Hamilton, Montana.  Diane M., who volunteers at the shelter, had contacted us about O.J. and then drove her out to the ranch.

O.J. has cerebellar hypoplasia, which affects fine motor skills and balance, but her case is much milder than our Wobbler Hall of Fame inductees, who include Wobbles the cat and Allie the Lab/Retriever mix.  Although O.J. doesn’t flop like they do, she does have a pronounced head tremor.  Like all our wobblers, though, she is very sweet and very affectionate.

Beth was out taking photos this afternoon for our summer newsletter when she happened to take this interesting shot of old, blind Peabody and blind Luke in front of Widget’s House.  The photo reminded me of the expression, "like two ships passing each other in the night."

Peabody is in the "blowing the coat out" stage, where his thick hair just keeps coming out in tufts.  The more we brush, the less difference it seems to make!  The next day he always has more.  Depending on the dog and coat, this can go on for weeks; the German Shepherds here seem to do this more often than anyone else.

In the background on the left is blind Dusty enjoying a sunny spring afternoon.

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Before I get into today’s topic, I just wanted to thank everyone who posted or emailed such wonderful and kind comments about Lonesome George’s death yesterday.  We were really touched by the heartfelt thoughts that were sent our — and George’s — way.  Thank you so much.

Our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, was scheduled to spend the day here doing spring vaccinations and health exams on all the horses.  (I guess we can say "horses" now since George as a mule was the only non-horse equine at the ranch.  And George never wanted to be confused with a horse, who he thought were all confused anyway, except for his sweetheart Lena.)  So Bill and his vet tech, Vicky C., arrived this morning to begin a long ‘herd health’ day.

In the photo Bill is working on Patches, a Paint mare who came to us a few years ago from an animal cruelty court case in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana.  A judge had turned Patches over to us for safekeeping until the defendant came to trial.  When the case finally ended in a conviction a year later, the judge granted us custody of Patches.  Kathryn is holding Patches, while Vicky was behind me keeping the syringes and other supplies prepped for Bill.

That’s Domino in the background, holding up the corner of the shed with his head.  Domino is mostly blind but can still see a bit out of his left eye.

Bill saved the strangles vaccine for last.  Strangles is a highly contagious and nasty disease in horses affecting the lymph nodes of the upper respiratory tract.  The vaccine is administered by squirting the fluid into the nostril so the horse absorbs it through the nasal membranes.  Getting the vaccine into a horse’s nose successfully is quite an art, and no one is better at doing it than Bill.  In this video I shot a few minutes after the photo of Patches, Bill is giving the strangles vaccine to our giant Belgian draft horse Rooster.  (The wind was blowing and unfortunately the microphone picked it up on the audio track.)  At the end you’ll see Rooster was showing me exactly what he thought about getting this stuff squirted up his nose.

http://www.dropshots.com/dropshotsplayer.swf

Our beloved old mule, Lonesome George, died today.  Kathryn found him dead in his corral early this afternoon.  She came to the door, in tears, to tell me.  I rushed back out to the corral with her.  There he was, laying on the ground, while his blind girls — Lena, Nikki and Destiny — milled around, unsure what had happened to their Uncle George.

We moved the girls into the barn and then huddled with George.  Yes, losing this little mule reduced us to tears.  He was no ordinary mule.  He was as cute as can be, easy-going, dignified, gentle, and adorable.  He had an unflappable, dreamy nature about him … an almost Buddha-like manner.  He was a mule you could invite into your house and he would have ambled from room to room and never knocked anything over.  If we’d ever had a cocktail party here, we could have pictured George mingling with the guests.

George was ever so sweet with the blind foals he helped Lena raise.  He never understood or appreciated why we turned him into a ‘nanny mule’ — it was a role he didn’t like but he performed so well.  George could certainly be mule-ish, but in such an endearing way it made us love him even more.  And he could dig a hole by the gate in an hour, pawing at the ground because he wanted out … or in.  It didn’t matter, he pawed whenever he wanted something.

We used to let him just wander around the ranch because he loved to explore.  George never went far — he cherished Lena and would hee-haw in distress if she disappeared from sight — and he always stayed within view of the barn.  Even yesterday morning we turned him loose so he could wander.

Yet it was clear in recent weeks that he was losing his battle with cancer, despite the chemotherapy.  His appetite had diminished and he started losing weight rapidly.  He became "ribby" and bony, even while his personality stayed pretty much the same.

So today wasn’t a shock, but still an emotional jolt.  Even when you’re expecting it, you’re never really prepared for it.

Beth soon joined Kathryn and me at George’s side.  I called Alayne, who was in Missoula, to tell her the sad news.  Then we set out to bury George.  His grave is close to the barn, so he’ll still be able to keep an eye on his girls.

We loved this old mule.  We still do.