Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Widget, bless her little heart, is still wearing the cone following her eye surgery last week.  Rather than try and rip it off her head, like most of our dogs do, Widget made peace with the cone early on.  She did have to learn that when you’re as low to the ground as she is (um, ‘ground clearance’ on this model is about 2.5 inches — no, it’s true, I measured this once), you REALLY need to hold your head up when you’re wearing the cone, or you’ll snag it constantly as you walk. 

As this photo shows, she certainly doesn’t let the cone get in the way of a good nap.  In fact, she found she could enjoy all her usual sleeping positions just fine with that ridiculous thing on her head.  "Cone Independence Day" is February 15, when it can finally come off.  That’s only another 144 hours of sleep to go. (She’s sacked out 18 hours a day.)

Her eye, by the way, is still looking really good.

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Little Bailey, a miniature Dachshund, arrived today to get a new start in life.  He came from an animal hoarder case in Great Falls, which you can read about here.  The Deputy County Attorney had called us about Bailey several weeks ago, and we had agreed to take him if no one else came forward to adopt him. 

The hoarder’s dogs had been moved to the fairgrounds, where they were cared for by the local Humane Society and volunteers.  One of the sanctuary’s friends and supporters, Christian C., became the "camp coordinator" responsible for the operation at the fairgrounds, and she brought Bailey out to the ranch this afternoon.  The first photo shows Christian and Bailey soon after they arrived.

Bailey has an old back injury which apparently was never treated, leaving him to wobble on his rear legs and drag them quite a bit.  His upper back looks normal, but about halfway down all of a sudden the vertebrae stick up, leaving his lower spine sharp and bony.  However, he is amazingly mobile, as we discovered after we put him outside to pee.  At first he struggled for a minute in the fresh snow with his back legs, then he found his footing, and off he went down the drive!  I had to dash after him to scoop him up. 

Fortunately he does not need a wheelchair to get around.  We are, of course, going to get him a complete medical exam to find out what is going on with his spine and back legs.

The second photo shows Bailey in our living room, where he was anxiously awaiting dinner!

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Jasper, our German Shorthaired Pointer with the floppy front leg, was adopted today by a wonderful couple from Bozeman.  Laurie and Fred have two Vizsla girls and were looking for a friend for them.  Laurie came across Jasper on our Web site and immediately fell in love with him. 

When they got to the ranch this afternoon, the smaller of the two Vizsla ladies ALSO fell in love with Jasper, and just couldn’t get enough of him.  You can see her in the photo giving Jasper big kisses.  She just thought he was the coolest dog ever.  Jasper, on the other hand, wasn’t quite sure what to make of this sudden rush of affection.  At times he seemed to think she was a bit, uh, "forward" about it.

The funny thing is that we always viewed Jasper as the most wired, high-energy dog we’d ever seen … until the Vizsla girls came to visit.  Jasper seemed mellow by comparison.  It looks like he’ll fit right in!

Thanks to Laurie and Fred for giving Jasper a new home!

(Click on photo for larger image.)

We just posted the Montana Quarterly article on the sanctuary that appeared in the magazine’s winter issue.  It is the best piece we’ve seen written that captures the real spirit of the animals here.  And the photos are stunning.  The editor of the Montana Quarterly graciously gave us permission to post the article and also was kind enough to send us the digital files as well.

The article is titled "Second Chances:  Couple’s one-of-a-kind ranch provides care and a home for blind and disabled animals."

You can access the article directly by clicking here or you can go to our Web site’s In The News page and find it there.

Note:  This is a big PDF file — it’s just under 2 MB — so depending on the speed of your Internet connection, you may need to be patient for it to download.  For example, on a slow DSL (256K) it will take about one minute.  On a dial-up it will take almost 5 minutes.

While I was with our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, this afternoon (see post below), Alayne was on her way to Helena to pick up Widget and bring her back to the ranch.  Widget’s vet, Dr. Brenda Culver, had called this morning to say Widget was recovering from her eye surgery just fine and could go home today.

I took this photo just a few minutes ago tonight.  Widget had been sleeping in front of the wood stove but got up when she heard me coming with the camera.  She’s actually panting because she got so warm from the fire.  Her left eye is VERY sensitive and she shrieks if you even touch that side of her head.

But we know she was already feeling better this evening … Alayne was hand-feeding her some treats and she was growling to warn the other dogs to keep away.  "It’s MINE," she growled.  "ALL MINE!"

Now that’s our girl.

Our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown of Missoula, recently learned about a new way to treat lymphoma in horses from an internal medicine specialist at Ohio State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine.  This was very important news to us, because blind Chance and our little old mule, Lonesome George, are battling this form of cancer.

We’ve been treating Chance and George with dexamethasone, giving them an oral 5 cc dose every other day.  (We came to call these ‘dex days.’)  But dex can only do so much to keep cancer at bay, especially something like lymphoma.  So when we heard about the new chemotherapy treatment, our immediate reaction was, "We HAVE to try it."  Bill got the protocol last week and discussed the treatment plan with the Ohio State specialist on Friday.  The drugs arrived this morning and Bill came out this afternoon to start Chance and George on their chemo.

The treatment involves two chemotherapy drugs that are also used in human medicine.  The drugs will be administered in alternate weeks.  The first, cytarabine, is injected subcutaneously, and is what Chance and George received today.  The second drug, cytoxan, is given intravenously.  I’ll have to trailer Chance and George in to Bill’s clinic next week so he can administer that drug for the first time.  Then we’ll repeat the schedule for the next several weeks … one week cytarabine given here at the ranch, the following week cytoxan given via IV’s at the clinic. 

Bill measured swollen lymphnodes on each animal today, and we’ll keep track to see if there’s noticeable progress in reducing their size.  We also drew blood for baseline readings and we’ll repeat the blood panels every month to make sure we’re not damaging their livers with these drugs.  (As with human chemotherapy, there are risks involved, and we’ll have to closely monitor Chance and George to see how they respond.)

In the first photo Bill is injecting the cytarabine in Chance.  (Yes, Chance does not have any eyes, but that doesn’t keep him from being a big goof and a happy boy.  I jogged down the drive with him this afternoon, from Lena’s Barn to Beauty’s Barn, when he showed me he wanted to get some exercise.)

George is getting his dose in the second photo.  He’s really much smaller than this photo makes him appear … he’s only about 800 lbs.

In the third photo Bill is measuring Chance’s lymphnodes with a set of calipers.

And finally, in the middle of all this I looked out the window of the medical room in Beauty’s Barn and saw this scene across the drive:  Beth’s cabin in the snow, with Ovando Mountain in the background.  I took the photo through the window.

Dr. Brenda Culver, our primary care vet in Helena who is also our resident eye expert, performed surgery on blind Widget’s glaucoma eye this afternoon.  She removed the internal part of Widget’s left eye — the cornea, lens, iris, etc. — and implanted a prosthesis inside the globe of her eye.  This will give Widget the appearance of a ‘normal’ eye while eliminating the painful pressure.  I took this photo of Widget this morning, before Alayne drove her to Helena for the surgery.

Brenda (pictured here) called this evening with good news.  The operation was routine and Widget’s recovery from anesthesia was uneventful.  She said Widget will need to wear a cone on her head for the next two weeks, and once we’re past three weeks, the chances of Widget’s body rejecting the prosthetic will drop dramatically.  Of course, we’ll be on pins and needles until we reach that point.

I had asked Brenda to take photos of the prosthesis itself, and that’s what you see here.  Brenda e-mailed this photo tonight.  This fits inside the globe — the white part of the eye.  In Widget’s case, this was an alternative to enucleation, or complete removal of the eye, and as a surgical procedure, it costs about the same.  If all continues to go well, little Widget will still look pretty much like she did this morning.

Widget is resting comfortably and hopefully we’ll be able to pick her up tomorrow afternoon.  We’ll keep you posted.

This is our second employee, Kathryn S., who just started work at the sanctuary today.  She joins our first hire, Beth, who came on board last September.  Beth’s reaction to having a new colleague to help with the workload: "Awesome!"

Before coming to the sanctuary, Kathryn was working as a biological researcher in a joint U.S. Forest Service/University of Montana project.  She was also working part-time as a veterinary technician.  Kathryn holds a B.A. from Michigan State University and recently just earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of Montana. 

In the photo with Kathryn are her dogs Walker (in the foreground) and Weezi.  In the background is the newest addition to Kathryn’s family, a 6-month old Lab named Tex.

You may be able to see that Tex has a shoulder injury.  Well, one night a few weeks ago a woman brought Tex to the emergency vet clinic  where Kathryn was working.  The dog had been hit by a car and was badly injured.  Tex needed major surgery.  His owner wasn’t able to afford it and was going to euthanize him instead.  Kathryn couldn’t let that happen.  She decided to pay for the surgery herself, nurse him back to health, and adopt him.  Tex is on the mend and tonight Kathryn and I removed the staples from his incision site.

Now all three dogs can "go to the office" with Kathryn every day!

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Here’s blind Callie, again pretending she can’t hear us calling her to go outside before bedtime.  This is actually one of her better "I’m dead" poses.  She was absolutely still.  Even the usual tell-tail (yep, that’s a pun) sign of life stirring in the otherwise motionless body … her little tail wagging back-and-forth … wasn’t in play here.  (She’s learning.)

But yes, she was very much alive. 

Our Saturday started early with the arrival of Hanna, a blind Appaloosa mare from North Carolina.  We had agreed to take her a few weeks ago after getting a call from her owner, a riding instructor named Annette S.  Hanna had been one of Annette’s lesson mares for many years, and was a real favorite of her students.  Annette had lost the lease on her property and had to move her riding operation to another farm that couldn’t accommodate a blind mare.

Annette thought she had found a place for Hanna with a horse rescue in Virginia, but the arrangement fell through and she suddenly was running out of time.  No other horse rescues would take a blind horse.  Annette offered to pay the full cost of shipping Hanna out to us.  (This in itself is very unusual, because most people who call us hoping to place a blind horse here don’t want to spend another dollar on the animal, let alone $1,200 or more to ship it.)

I originally told Annette ‘no’ … we had only one open stall space left in Beauty’s Barn and planned to save that for an emergency case, and we were reserving the only other stall space for a blind horse caught up in a court case in Great Falls, Montana.  (We still don’t know whether that horse is coming here or not.)

But I could tell how crushed Annette was when I said we couldn’t take Hanna.  I hung up the phone  and felt awful.  Alayne and I talked and we finally agreed to give Hanna the stall we were saving for an emergency case.  I called Annette back with the news.  She was elated … and then she cried.  She was just so relieved to have found a place for her beloved mare.

We got in touch with our horse transportation outfit, Grand Champion Horse Transportation, and began planning Hanna’s trip out West.  Jeff Marks, who owns Grand Champion, has hauled several blind horses for us in recent years, including Nikki who was just a few months old at the time.

In the first photo Jeff is beginning to unload Hanna.  This was the first time we’d seen her.  She’s a very sweet and pretty mare, and a big girl, too.  She came right out of the trailer without a problem, as you see in the second photo.  In this photo Hanna is in her stall in Beauty’s Barn, where we fed her breakfast before turning her out into a corral to get some fresh Rocky Mountain air and exercise.  By the end of the day, she already seemed to be settling in just fine.

(Click on photos for larger image.)