Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Today I took Willis, the last of my original "Seattle cats" — the ones who moved with us to Montana in 2000 — to see our specialist in Missoula, Dr. Dave Bostwick, for a check-up.  Willis has been suffering from lymphoma for over a year.  But cancer isn’t all he’s got.  He also has heart problems, high blood pressure, and a thyroid problem.  Every day he gets a multi-drug ‘cocktail’ served up in some canned food.  The cocktail consists of Prednisone for the lymphoma, Propanolol for his heart, Norvasc for his blood pressure, and Methimazole for his thyroid. 

In the first photo Dave is listening to his heart and lungs.  After this, Dave then did an echocardiogram of his heart, which looked okay.

Six months ago I would have told you Willis would be dead in weeks, just judging from the way he looked then.  Yet Willis has really hung in there.  He’s down to 6 pounds, is skinny and looks awful, yet is still happy, affectionate, and purrs when held. 

It was a good thing we did the check-up:  Willis’ blood pressure had zoomed out of control again, this time literally off the charts.  In the second photo Dave is measuring the blood pressure, which is done at the base of the tail.  The pressure is reported out on the dial Dave is holding in his hand.  The scale goes up to 300 units of mercury. 

Willis blew the needle right to the 300 unit mark, and presumably he would have gone past it if the scale allowed.  That’s almost three times normal!  Dave was surprised that with blood pressure that high, Willis hadn’t already ruptured his retinas or burst a blood vessel in his brain.  Yikes.  So we’re doubling his dose of Norvasc, starting tonight!

(In case you’re wondering what Willis is doing in the photo, he’s licking the gel off his chest that was on the ultrasound probe.  I have no idea what that tastes like, but apparently he liked it.)

Dave called this evening, right after I got home, to say that Willis’ blood work had come back and his thyroid had also deteriorated.  We’ll double his dose of Methimazole, too.

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Meanwhile, just after I got off the phone with Dave, Alayne walked into the kitchen holding Wobbles, our little guy with cerebellar hypoplasia.  She had just brought him in from his cottage, where she’d gone out to feed him and his new girlfriend, Claire (a.k.a. Mrs. Wobbles).  Alayne noticed he didn’t look right, and he wasn’t interested in his dinner, which is unusual.  And Wobs (as we call him) hadn’t moved from the same spot on his bed all afternoon. 

I took one look at him and could tell something was wrong.  His breathing didn’t sound right … a little raspy … and he seemed out of sorts.  I took his temperature and it spiked to 105.9.  Uh oh.  (Normal range in a cat is 100.5 to 102.5 degrees.)  I called our other vets in Helena and spoke with our specialist there, Dr. Britt Culver.  Britt had me inject Wobs with 1/2 cc of Baytril, give him a very low dose of aspirin, and then gave me directions on what to do tomorrow.  We’ll continue to take his temperature every four hours.

The photo shows Wobs on a dog cot in the living room, where I put him to take his temperature.  Almost immediately Widget climbed up to be with him.  (She loves cats.)

As much as Alayne and I would like to take some ’emotional time off’
when we lose an animal like Smokey, the fact is that we can’t … every day we just
have to get back into the routine.  Each morning there are 70+ animals clamoring for their breakfast!  And attending to them really does help get our minds off the grief.

So I had ‘restocking the pantry’ in mind when our volunteer Kathy G., who was out here last weekend and spent nearly an hour grooming poor old Smokey, came out again today to help.  Kathy and I took the truck and flatbed trailer over to our neighbor’s hay barn, where our remaining 80 tons of hay are stored, and loaded up 2 tons.  The photo shows Kathy on the haystack just before we unloaded it into Scout’s Barn, where we can store small amounts of hay for daily feeding.  (Most of this barn is taken up with horse stalls.)

It was 4 degrees below zero when I took the photo at about 2 p.m. this afternoon.  We started the day at 20 below zero (again!), and tonight as I post this at 9:45 p.m., it’s 19 below zero.  Just about where we began!

Kathy and I managed to stay pretty warm the whole time.  That’s what working out with 2 tons of hay will do for you.

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Today was one of those gorgeous blue sunny days when nothing bad is supposed to happen.  But it did.  Our old blind mare Smokey, who had just arrived on November 19, died from colic.  Her gut twisted on itself.  It was an awful death.

We found her down in her stall in Beauty’s Barn this morning, writhing in agony.  We could tell she had been thrashing around for quite a while overnight … the stall panels  were knocked askew, her water bucket smashed, her head bloody from smacking it against the ground as she struggled in pain.  She was groaning and in complete distress.

We grabbed the phone in the medical room and called our vet, Dr. Bill Brown in Missoula.  I told him I thought she was colicking.  He told us to give her banamine, a powerful pain killer and anti-inflammatory, and he would be on his way.  We ran to the house, grabbed the tube of banamine, and raced back to the barn.  As Smokey lay on her side, I opened her mouth and squirted the paste in. 

After about 20 minutes, Smokey struggled to her feet — she was wobbly, her hindquarters twitching, but she was up.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  I slipped a halter on her and carefully … slowly … led her across the barn aisle and into the heated medical stall.  It was warm and dry and clean, better for her and for Bill who’d have to work on her.  Alayne and I took turns walking her around and around the stall in circles.  Sometimes in colic cases just getting some exercise can help.

An hour later she was doing so well … walking around on her own … that I left her alone and stepped out to put her stall panels back together.  Suddenly I heard her crash to the ground in the medical stall.  I opened the door and she was down.  My heart stopped.  I put a pillow under her head to protect her face that she had bloodied during the night.  She was groaning again, beginning to writhe.  I called Alayne in the house to tell her Smokey was back down.

I looked out the barn window and saw Bill’s truck turning into the drive.  A few seconds later he pulled up to the barn.  I opened the barn door, and while Bill quickly gathered his supplies, Bill’s wife Linda rushed into the barn with me.  I opened the main door to the medical stall and was startled to see Smokey in mid-air, falling right towards the door!  I slammed it shut just in time.  She must have struggled to her feet, only to collapse again.  Linda and I went in the other door to the stall and saw an awful sight:  Smokey’s legs were sticking straight out sideways, rigid, and her body was heaving.

Linda shouted, "Bill, come quick!"  I ran outside and told him, "We’re losing her!"  He hurried inside, took one look at Smokey, and turned to me.  "Steve, she’s dying.  I don’t think there’s anything I can do.  I think it’s too late."  I started crying. 

Bill pulled out his stethoscope and started listening to her heart.  Just then she went into agonal breathing — taking her last breaths — and I knew Bill was right.  Seconds later, it was over.  She was dead.  I kneeled by her side and just cried.  I couldn’t believe it.  This blind old girl had been here less than a month.  She was so sweet, so gentle … and so deserving of more time with us than what she got.

This is a photo we took the night Smokey arrived.  You can read her original story I posted the following day here.

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Alayne and I grieve as much over our horses as we do the dogs and cats when we lose them.  Every one of them is a death in the family.  But having a horse die is worse in a way because we immediately have to start worrying about what to do with the body.  And it hurts because there is no dignified way to deal with a 1,000 pound dead animal.  When our small animals die, we can hold them and caress them and grieve as long as we need, before giving them to the vet to be cremated.  With a horse, we have to take care of the body ourselves.  And right away. 

Fortunately, we had one open large animal gravesite left.  But the grave was a 1/4 mile from Beauty’s Barn and the snow was deep.  The only question was whether I could get Smokey’s body to it.  I ended up spending 5 hours on the tractor today, digging my way to the gravesite.  Alayne and I finally got Smokey buried as the sun was going down.  Just before we put her in, Alayne and I stood over her body, crying together over this horse we loved but had barely known.  We looked out across the valley, and the white, snowy mountains above us were all lit up in a soft red glow from the setting sun.  It was, after all, a gorgeous day.  We told Smokey that she couldn’t have been buried in a more beautiful place than right here on the ranch.

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Our blog service went down last night and is still not fully functioning.  They brought up posts from last weekend while they’re trying to restore the service but more recent posts are only now, this evening, gradually coming back up.  They expect to have everything restored this weekend.  I tried to re-publish this week’s posts but while the text is there, the photos are not … and I couldn’t even re-post the same photos from my hard drive.  So if things look a bit odd below, there’s a reason!

Hopefully by Monday morning this will all be fixed.

I drove into Missoula this morning to meet the old, blind Cocker Spaniel and be there for her medical exam with our specialist, Dr. Dave Bostwick.  When I arrived at the clinic, I found a small, plump, almost oval-shaped little girl.  She had a long, thick black coat that is raggedy and clearly in need of grooming, but fortunately her hair wasn’t really matted.  She had a sweet face, and I could tell right away she couldn’t see a thing.

Although she’s blind from cataracts, Dave could actually see through one of them to the retina, so theoretically she should be able to see out through that cataract … but she is completely blind.  This means she must have some other ocular problem, most likely with the retina itself. 

In the first photo Dave is doing the ultrasound of her organs.  For part of this ‘survey’ we had her upside down on her back, but for the second part she was able to stand, as you see here.  Dave is moving the ultrasound probe across her shaved abdomen and watching the images as they appear on the screen.  In general her organs looked good, including her heart, although her liver was a bit larger than expected, as was one adrenal gland, but not significantly so.  Her bloodwork will tell us if there is anything to be concerned about there.  We’ll get those results back in a couple of days.

In the second photo you can tell this little dog was quite happy that the exam was finally over!  Traci, Dave’s vet tech, is holding her still for the camera. 

We always worry when we get old dogs that there may be something going on internally that can’t be detected by a routine physical exam or bloodwork — like heart problems, tumors, etc. — so we like to start with a comprehensive ultrasound evalution.  Although it’s expensive, we think ultimately it’s very cost-effective … we’d much rather find something early, when it’s treatable.

Speaking of cost, when I got to the clinic this morning I learned that a good part of the bill for her exam was already paid for.  A couple in Missoula who are wonderful friends of the sanctuary had seen our blog from last night, and stopped by the clinic to tell Dave they’d be making a donation to help cover the exam fees.  What a delightful surprise that was!  Thank you!

I brought this old girl back to the ranch this afternoon, and she’s doing fine.  She’s settled in and was already exploring the yard, plowing through the snow.

You may have noticed I haven’t used a name for her.  Well, she doesn’t have one yet.  Suggestions welcome!

(Click on photos for large image.)

Our go-everywhere volunteer, Jerry Black, drove down to Hamilton today to pick up an old, blind Cocker Spaniel that the Bitterroot Humane Association had called us about yesterday.  A motorist had seen this old girl stuck and floundering in a snowbank by the side of the road last week, in sub-zero weather.  This good Samaritan stopped, helped the dog out of the snowbank, and took her to the shelter.  After a week of notices and ads in the paper, no one came forward to claim her.  The day after the dog legally became the shelter’s, the director called us. 

Jerry called to say she was a sweet, beautiful little thing.  He dropped her off this afternoon with our specialist in Missoula, Dr. Dave Bostwick, who will do an exam tomorrow morning, including an echocardiogram (Cockers tend to have heart problems) and an ultrasound of her major organs.  I’ll have photos to post tomorrow night.

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Today I had a call from the director of a northern Idaho shelter about a litter of 4-week old puppies with an apparent case of rickets.  The shelter’s vet had recommended euthanizing the puppies.  The shelter director wanted to know if we had dealt with rickets before.  (She knows we’ve had a lot of strange medical cases here!)  We did not have any experience with rickets, but we referred her to our veterinary surgeons in Spokane, Drs. Lawrence and Harari, for a second opinion.  Neither the shelter director nor I could imagine euthanizing 4-week old babies without at least finding out if there was something that could be done to save them.

At least once a day, as I pass by Widget sleeping (yet again) on a bed in the living room, I tell her:  "Widget, get a job!"  Frequent blog readers will know we often wonder exactly what blind Widget does at night in her cottage, because all she does during the day in the house is sleep.  And sleep.  And sleep some more.  She is, without a doubt, a professional layabout.  (I think that actually rhymes.  Unless you’re Canadian.)

The only job Widget would consider taking is a position as a certified dog bed tester for our favorite pet bed company, West Paw Design.  They’re in Bozeman, Montana, and make the beds locally.  We have their beds all over the house and in the dog and cat cottages.

In these photos I took at lunch today, Widget demonstrated how she’d test beds for West Paw, using one of their own beds. 

I’m sure there was some science to this, but all I could see was a somewhat overweight Beagle/Dachshund mix rolling back and forth, side to side, happily snorting as she went. 

She pronounced herself quite satisfied with this particular bed and finally, with a little howl, declared it "100% Certified by Widget."  She thinks that getting paid to sleep on the job is … well … a dream come true.

Anyone know if West Paw is hiring?

(Click on photos for larger image.)

This is our volunteer Kathy G. from Missoula.  She’s a regular who comes out about every other Sunday to groom the horses, feed them treats, clean their stalls and fill their water tanks.  Kathy came out at noon today for her usual routine.  As you can imagine, the horses love it when she dotes on them.  She groomed five of the horses this afternoon, including Lilah here in the photo.  Today Kathy also brought a little back massager device that made the horses just melt with she used it on them. 

They just can’t get enough of her.  Is it any wonder?

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Alayne and I had a quiet Sunday, at least compared to yesterday.  On Saturday we moved and stacked 2.5 tons of hay with the help of friends and volunteers, adopted out little blind Ashley, troubleshooted and fixed a frozen 100-gallon water tank, and had eye surgery done on our blind mare Madison.  Today we did the usual feeding and animal care chores, and then I hauled the trash to the town dump (no trash pick-up service out here!) and plowed snow in the afternoon with the tractor.  (We’re still digging out from last week’s series of snowstorms.)  Alayne worked on thank you letters to the folks who have so kindly donated to the sanctuary.

I took this photo as I headed off to the Ovando dump about mid-day … bright blue sky, a blanket of snow, and cold (about 12 degrees).  You’re looking north-east toward the ranch.  The mountains of the Scapegoat Wilderness, part of the enormous Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, are in the distance. 

As I write this at 10 p.m., it’s 4 below zero.  An ice fog moved in briefly and then lifted.  Now it’s a beautiful, crisp and clear Rocky Mountain winter night.

Liz S., our wonderful volunteer who went with me to Seattle for the equine vet convention earlier this week, came out to the ranch today to adopt little blind Ashley.  In the photo are Liz and her roommate Matt C.  Liz had been thinking about adopting Ashley for quite a while … in fact almost from the day she arrived here as a 10-week old puppy … and we talked about it a lot while we were in Seattle.  So we made plans for Liz and Matt to pick her up today and take her home to Missoula for a ‘test drive.’ 

We were sad to see Ashley go — she had really stolen our hearts.  And she’s just one of the cutest little things we’d ever seen.  But we know she’s going to a great home!

(Click on photo for larger image.)