Rolling Dog Farm Blog

We had several incredible volunteers help out today, and we got tons done.  Literally.  On the trailer is our ace hay-moving crew … Nate, Amy, Juana and Chris.  We moved 11 tons of hay from our neighbor’s hay barn over to Scout’s Barn, then stacked it clear to the rafters.  I took the photo after our first or second load in the morning … by the end of the day, we didn’t look this good!  That was 22,000 pounds of hay, and my-oh-my, did we feel it.  We stuffed Scout’s Barn full, then took most of the remaining bales over to Lena’s Barn and stacked the final 10 bales over by the sighted horse corral. 

While we were moving hay on a snowy day, our volunteer Kathy was busy scrubbing out the water tanks in the horse corrals and filling them.  You can see from this photo just how big these tanks are … this one is 150 gallons, and we have some that are 300 gallons. 

But before Kathy could fill tanks, we had to troubleshoot our barn well, which had failed yesterday.  We couldn’t track down our well-driller, and by this morning we were beginning to despair.  Then Nate and Amy arrived, and I remembered Nate was an engineer.  So I asked Nate to see if he could figure out what was wrong with the well.  Sure enough, he isolated the problem to a faulty power switch for the pump.  We cannibalized a switch from another outlet, he re-wired it, and voila! — we had water again!

(Every family should have at least one engineer, don’t you think?  Alayne has a law degree and I have an international relations degree, and as a result neither one of us is any good at this truly useful stuff!)

Thanks to all these wonderful folks who were such a huge help today!

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Cody, the puppy from Wyoming who survived parvo, has a new Mom … our employee Beth!  After Cody came back from the hospital, it took only a few days for Beth to fall in love with this wonderful little boy.  We realized she was quietly developing a powerful bond with him, and when Beth asked if she could adopt him, we were delighted to say "Yes!"

So Cody follows Beth everywhere as she makes her rounds across the ranch.  He stays by her side, never venturing far, and tags along as she walks from one place to another.

We wanted Cody to be adopted by someone we knew — he really is a special dog — and now we’ll get to enjoy him as he grows up here at the ranch.

I took the photo of Beth and Cody late this afternoon.  That’s not an iceberg behind Beth … just one of our many big snowbanks from plowing the drive.

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Dr. Bostwick called today to say Widget’s bloodwork looked great, which ruled out other possible explanations for the odd episodes we’ve seen in her recently.  So this morning I talked with Dr. Brenda Culver, our primary care vet in Helena who’s also our go-to person for eye issues, about Dr. Bostwick’s evaluation of Widget.  I told Brenda we discovered that the pressure in her glaucoma eye had zoomed to 60 units of mercury.  (High end of normal is 20.) 

Brenda immediately connected the elevated pressure to the behavior changes as a potential explanation.  She said our veterinary ophthalmologist in Spokane, Dr. Bill Yakely, has seen cases of otherwise mysterious behavior changes in dogs finally be explained by pressure spikes in their eyes.  Bringing the pressure under control, either medically or by removing the eye, made the odd behavior disappear.  That means the only way we will be able to determine this is after the fact.

Unfortunately, given the three-times normal pressure in Widget’s eye, Brenda did not think we could bring it down with medication.  She had cautioned us over the years that we could eventually lose control of the pressure in her eye, and this is what happened.  So she recommended we pursue surgery to bring relief to Widget. 

The good news here is that we have an alternative to just removing the eye.  Because the globe of her eye — the white part that holds everything — is still healthy, we can actually take out the inner eye with the lens, cornea, iris, and all the built-up fluid that’s causing the pressure, and surgically implant a prosthesis inside the globe.  This is not a glass eye as you’d commonly think of it, because the outer eye will still be there and alive and attached to ocular muscles.  What’s inside the eye will be ‘fake.’  This is purely cosmetic and won’t matter a bit to Widget, but for all of us who adore her bug-eyed little face, we’d sure like to keep that eye in if we can.

There is a chance her body will reject the prosthesis as a foreign object … it can take up to 6 weeks or more before we’ll know if it will be rejected … and she’ll need daily medications to reduce the chances of rejection.  But we did this on our blind sled dog Dusty two years ago, and it worked perfectly.  If you look at him today, you can’t tell his remaining eye isn’t ‘real.’  Thus we know what’s involved and what the risks are.

Brenda ordered the prosthesis this afternoon, and if it arrives by Monday, she’ll do the surgery that afternoon.  If not, then surgery will be Tuesday.

(If you’re wondering why this wasn’t an option for Luke, it’s because his entire eye was chronically infected.  With glaucoma, the pressure is internal, leaving the exterior of the eye — the globe — healthy and intact.)

The first photo of Widget was from Dr. Bostwick’s exam room yesterday.  The second photo I took a few minutes ago, as I was writing this at 9:30 p.m.  Widget is sound asleep on the bed in my office, oblivious to what I’m posting about her.

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I took our blind Beagle/Dachshund mix, Widget, into Missoula today for an evaluation by our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Dave Bostwick.  Widget has had some odd episodes in the past several weeks … she’ll suddenly get very quiet, her usually upright tail will drop, and she’ll act zoned out for a few minutes.  A couple of times Alayne has picked her up during these episodes and Widget will be blank … not unconscious, just more spaced out than anything.  Then, suddenly, she’ll snap out of it and be her normal boisterous, bossy self. 

These don’t seem like typical seizures, and there are no tremors or the other symptoms you’d expect from that kind of event.  The frequency of these episodes has increased, and when the last one occurred earlier this week, we decided it was time to have her checked out.

So Dave did a thorough physical exam and neurological evaluation, he drew blood (no test results yet), and then conducted an ultrasound.  In the first photo Dave’s doing the ultrasound.  He’s holding the probe underneath Widget, pressing it against her abdomen.  The dark circular blob on the right of the screen is Widget’s bladder.  All of her organs looked great, her heart checked out fine, and Dave could find nothing at this point to explain what might be going on.  He said it’s possible we’re seeing  the precursors to seizure activity, and we might have to wait and see what develops.  The bloodwork may tell us more when we get the results tomorrow.

This photo shows Widget on the exam table after Dave completed the ultrasound.  "Whew!,"  she seemed to be saying.  We did find out the pressure in Widget’s left eye — the one with glaucoma — has suddenly shot up to 60 units of mercury, well above normal range.  (Normal is less than 20.)  So we’ll be talking with Dr. Brenda Culver, our primary care vet and all-around "eye expert," tomorrow to decide how to bring the pressure back down.

From Dave’s clinic Widget and I resumed our errands around Missoula.  This included stops at Cenex for equine senior grain (750 pounds), wood shavings (10 bales), alfalfa pellets (50 pounds), and salt blocks (five 50-pounders); PetsMart for cat litter and salt block holders; the Post Office to mail a box of newsletters to an awesome volunteer in Nevada who is taking them around to vet clinics and other places where animal-friendly people congregate; Staples for office supplies; the bank to deposit donation checks; and, oh yes, the Good Food Store to get groceries for two humans.  This photo is what the back of the truck looked like in the PetsMart parking lot.  (The empty space in the corner I reserved for our groceries!)

When I came out of PetsMart and opened the truck door, this is what I found.  Widget had climbed over from the back seat and was in the driver’s seat, apparently trying to figure out how to start the truck.  Fortunately her legs were too short to reach the pedals.  By the time I got the camera, she had worked her way out of the driver’s seat and onto the center console, acting rather nonchalant about the whole affair.

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Postscript:  When Widget and I left Missoula after dark, it was 41 degrees.  When we got to the ranch, it was 5 degrees.

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I didn’t have any animal-related items to post this evening, so I thought I’d show you a couple of photos I took late this afternoon as the sun was going down.  This first photo is the view facing northeast from the ranch.  The gate in the foreground leads to one 10-acre pasture and another 30-acre pasture beyond.  In the distance are the peaks of the Scapegoat Wilderness Area, part of the enormous Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. 

The second photo shows the curtain of ice and snow sliding off the roof of Scout’s Barn.  See that door in the middle of the wall, behind the mound of snow?  The door opens onto an interior shed for horses.  Our first few winters here we had to dig that door open all the time … sometimes daily, depending on storms.  Then we got smart and asked one of our wonderful volunteers, Wayne S. from Seattle, to take down the south wall to the shed (it’s around the other corner).  Now the horses have free access to the shed, snow is not an issue, and that curtain of snow and ice can slide down all it wants! 

This shed is used by three of our disabled horses … Kiowa, Copper Kid and Cactus Jack.  (Who comes up with these names?  This crew sounds like an outlaw gang from the 1880’s!)  The horses were busy eating their evening hay off to the left in the corral while I was taking the photos.

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I drove over to Helena late this afternoon to pick up the animals we left at the vet hospital on Thursday:  Callie the blind Dachshund, Cody the puppy, Snowball the cat, and Luke the blind dog. 

Because of the chronic and painful condition of Luke’s eyes, our vet Dr. Brenda Culver went ahead with the surgery to remove both of them.

Although he’s only been with us for a few weeks, this sweet boy was so happy to hear my voice when I went to get him out of his kennel at the clinic.  He was sitting there barking, but when he heard my voice, he stopped, got quiet, then cocked his head to listen and get a fix on me.  When he realized it was me, he was all wiggling and ready to go!

Alayne took these photos of me with Luke tonight in one of the dog cottages by the main house.  He couldn’t get enough loving this evening … we tried to get him to sit still long enough so both of us could be looking at the camera, but he just wanted to crawl into my lap or roll over on his back for a tummy scratch. 

It is amazing to watch how fast animals bounce back from surgeries like this.  Luke was already eagerly exploring the yard tonight, and he was bouncy and playful in the cottage.  No moping around for this boy!

To everyone who’s written in to tell us of their own dogs who had to
have eyes removed, thank you for your wonderful comments.  We really
appreciated them. 

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If you’re wondering about the other animals who came home today: Callie had a dental, Cody was neutered, and Snowball had teeth removed because of a chronic oral inflammation called stomatitis.  All are doing fine!

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Our little blind dog Goldie — she’s one of our original ‘six-pack’ of dogs from when we lived in Seattle — has a case of obsessive compulsive disorder … and a nose that feeds her disorder! 

She is absolutely obsessed with soft toys and wants to rip the stuffing out to get to the squeaker.  Somehow she can always tell if there is anything soft and fabric-like in a box or bag, even when it’s sitting on the kitchen counter, the washing machine, or in this case, a stool.  Goldie can’t be fooled (we’ve tried).  Anything with fabric has the potential for being a new soft toy with a squeaker.  She’s determined to find out for herself.

She ignores all packages with anything hard in them.  But her nose tells her whenever a box has something in it with fabric.  And she always wants something NEW, thank you very much.

On Friday the UPS driver brought this box which has a new horse blanket in it.  At first we put the box on the washing machine, and Goldie spent hours in the laundry room staring at it (remember, she can’t see but she knew where it was), barking at it, imploring us to let her at it.  This weekend we moved the box into the hallway, placing it on the stool while we did some laundry.  Minutes later we heard the sound of cardboard shredding.

And there she was, busy like a beaver chewing a hole in the corner of the box. 

Promptly caught on camera, the second photo shows Goldie with her classic "What are you looking at me for?  I wasn’t doing anything!" expression.

But the third photo shows the evidence … the start of a nice hole and the tempting target inside.

This little dog is also one of the smartest animals we’ve ever known.  She’s figured out how to open zippers to get inside backpacks and suitcases (good source of soft things!).  In Seattle we had bi-fold closet doors — the kind you push on and they open inwards — and to our dismay one day discovered that Goldie learned how to use her paws to push the doors open. 

We’ll even try to mollify her by giving her an old soft toy to divert her attention away from a newly arrived package.  "Here, Goldie, try this!"  But she’ll drop the toy and resume staring at the box … which is usually placed out of reach, for good reason!

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I took five of our recent arrivals to Helena this morning to see our primary care vet, Dr. Brenda Culver, at Montana Veterinary Specialists & General Care.  Brenda and her husband, Dr. Britt Culver — a board-certified internal medicine specialist — own the clinic and have been our principal vets since we first moved to Montana in 2000.  (In case you’re wondering, Helena is about 70 miles east of us, across MacDonald Pass on the other side of the Continental Divide.)

Brenda has a special interest in ophthalmology, and although she is not a board-certified veterinary ophthalmologist, she is incredibly talented in diagnosing and treating eye cases.

So today I took four blind dogs — Levi, Luke (a.k.a. "Vader"), Joey the Cocker, and Callie — for eye exams, and also Cody the puppy.

In the first photo, Brenda is examining Joey, who has cataracts.  In the second photo with Callie, Brenda is doing a ‘menace response’ test — moving her hand rapidly towards the eye to determine if the animal can see it and blink.  This is one of the first steps in a comprehensive eye exam.  Jamey M., one of the clinic’s vet techs, is holding Callie.  It turns out Callie needed dental work, so she stayed behind at the clinic.

In the third photo, Brenda is examining Cody, who still has his ‘rotary nystagmus,’ or rapid eye movement.  He was really squirming and Brenda will get a better look at his eyes tomorrow when he is under anesthesia for neutering.  Brenda was making high-pitched sounds to try and focus Cody’s attention, which is why her lips are pursed in this photo. 

In the final photo, Brenda is working with Levi.  As we suspected, Brenda determined that Levi went blind from trauma.  There is blood pooled in his right eye, and you can see scar tissue on his left eye, too.  Levi has a bad case of submissive urination, and we had wondered if he hadn’t been bludgeoned at one stage in his past … severely enough to cost him his vision and make him fearful to the point of submissive urination.

And then there was blind Luke.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get photos of Brenda with Luke, but the news wasn’t good.  In the exam room Brenda found his chronic right eye inflammation was actually caused by a sheared-off lens, flopping around inside the eye chamber.  This is more painful than he was letting us know.  Later this afternoon Brenda also did an ultrasound on his eyes and found his left eye had a detached retina and other potential chronic long-term problems.  She recommended, and we agreed, to remove both eyes so he would at least be comfortable again.

We have one other dog, Patti, who has no eyes now, and it was a big relief for her because of the pain she had been in.  We had to do the same thing on our blind horse, Chance, because of painful, chronically infected eyes, and we could tell he felt so much better the very next day.  Although it seems like such an extreme measure, for an already blind animal it means comfort instead of pain … and that’s what we’re after.

We’ll head back to Helena on Monday to pick up Luke, Cody and Callie.

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I was in the office late this afternoon when Alayne came in and told me to come out to the living room to see something.  There on a dog cot was this scene:  little Callie the blind Dachshund and big Kenai the blind Lab, sharing the bed.  It was as if they both knew they’d been on the blog recently and decided to offer us a joint appearance.

The funny thing about this is that most of the other dogs were out of the house at the time, and there were at least six empty dog beds in the living room.  (Not to mention Callie’s favorite towel stack.)  We don’t know who was on the cot first, or how they came to share it.  But share it they did!

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Unlike most Dachshunds we know — who like to burrow — blind Callie likes to perch up high.  The higher the better.  Her favorite spot in the house is the stack of towels we keep on hand in the living room.  (I’m sure you can guess why … the inevitable accidents, spilled water bowls, etc.)

This morning as I was working on the computer, I heard the odd sounds of a small, overweight Dachshund trying to jump up … not make it … and jump again.  Repeatedly.  I looked around and saw Callie, frustrated, trying to get up onto her towel perch.  Earlier today Alayne had added several more freshly laundered towels to the stack, so it was higher than normal.  That’s why she couldn’t do it.

I picked up Miss Plumpette and placed her on the towel stack.  She turned a few times to get everything ‘just so,’ then lay down for her mid-morning snooze.  I took the camera and started clicking away from behind the TV set.  Big, blind Kenai — you can see her in the background — was keenly aware of the camera noise, but not Callie.  She never so much as opened her eyes the entire time I was taking photos.

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