Rolling Dog Farm Blog

We just learned yesterday afternoon that a kind person donated $200 worth of advertising for the sanctuary on an innovative Web site called New West.  The site is "devoted to the culture, economy, politics, environment and overall atmosphere of the Rocky Mountain West."  If you want to know what’s going on across the Rockies, this is the place to find out.  This wonderful donor wanted to support both us and New West, and offered us the free ad buy as a way to help spread the word about the sanctuary. 

So our incredibly talented designer, Terrel Armstrong, developed this ad tonight.  It will begin appearing on New West next week.  As an online ad, it will link directly to the sanctuary’s Web site. 

(Terrel designed our site and helps maintain it, too, and also designs our newsletter.  All pro bono.  She is fabulous.)

We have never done any advertising like this before, so it will be very interesting to see what kind of response we get. We thought you might enjoy a sneak preview of our very first ad!

Bonnie and Clyde, a brother and sister pair of cats, arrived at the ranch last night.  Jerry Black, our awesome volunteer who serves as ‘animal chauffeur,’ picked them up at the Missoula airport and brought them out to the ranch. These cats have cerebellar hypoplasia, a neurological condition that affects their fine motor skills and balance.  Our beloved cat, Wobbles, and our recent arrival Allie, were both born with the same condition. 

Bonnie and Clyde were tiny kittens when a college student from Austin, Texas found them on the street one rainy night two years ago.  He took them home to his parents.  Now his folks are ‘downsizing’  and had been trying to find a place that would take these two cats.  They finally  learned about us, and we agreed to take them.  After first Wobbles and then Allie stole our hearts, we developed a real soft spot for cerebellar hypoplasia animals.

These two cats are very shy and 24 hours after arriving, are still lurking in a crate, even though they are free to come and go in the animal cottage.  I took this photo about 5 p.m. today.  Bonnie, the all-black one, is bigger, more outgoing, and has less of the ‘wobbles.’  Her brother Clyde is the wallflower of the two and has the more pronounced case of the wobbles. 

Our experience is that it takes the shy ones about 3 days on average to gain their confidence, come out and begin exploring their new world. 

We got up this morning and found that Allie, our wobbly puppy with cerebellar hypoplasia, had managed overnight to chew open her spay sutures.  We had just brought her and the other recently spayed girls back from the clinic yesterday afternoon.  Not only did she have a wide-open slit into her abdomen, but it had already become infected.

I didn’t have time to rush her back to our vets in Helena, so I called our other specialist, Dr. Dave Bostwick in Missoula, and asked if he had a spare moment this morning to suture her closed.  He said, "Sure, but I need a couple of blood donors!"  Turns out that a dog had just arrived at his hospital with a horrendous autoimmune disorder that causes the body to destroy its own red blood cells.  Part of the therapy involves repeated blood transfusions.  Dave had already drawn blood from his own dog and needed more.

Dave said he’d prefer "lean and calm" dogs as donors, so Alayne and I loaded up blind Buddy and blind Dusty for the trip to Missoula, along with Allie.

In the first photo with Buddy are vet techs Sherrie on the left and Traci on the right, with Dave holding Buddy’s half-litre of blood we’d just drawn.  In the second photo is Dusty, wondering what the heck is going on.  We hadn’t pulled his blood yet. The sick dog who was getting the blood is in the background behind Dusty with the cone on his head.  Dave put his dog in the kennel on the left while we were working with Buddy and Dusty.

After all this, Dave patched up Allie.  Because of the infection we couldn’t close up her with sutures, so we had to use bandages and wraps.  We started her on an antibotic as well.  We’ll have to change her bandages twice a day for the next several days.

Finally the three dogs and I headed back to the ranch.

We just hope this sick dog makes it. 

Our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, came out today to examine our blind mare Madison.  The Idaho Humane Society brought Madison to us a couple of months ago.  Shortly before leaving their Boise rescue ranch for the trip to Montana, Madison had been kicked in the jaw by another horse.  The Idaho Humane Society folks had a vet work on her there and she arrived with the jaw looking pretty much healed.  We finished out her prescribed medications with no sign of any continued problem.  Just recently, however, an abscess-like swelling developed at the injury site on her jaw.  The usual medications did not make a difference. 

Our vet suspects that a bone fragment has broken off and Madison’s body is now trying to reject it as a ‘foreign object.’  We took Madison down to the medical suite in Beauty’s Barn so she could be sedated for a physical exam and X-rays.  The photo shows Bill with his portable X-ray machine, while vet tech Vicky Cruz is holding the film against Madison’s jaw.  We can’t develop the radiographs on the ranch so it will be another day before we know what the problem is.

This morning Alayne hauled a truckload of animals to our vets in Helena at Montana Veterinary Specialists.  In the photo are blind and deaf  Spinner on the left and Allie with cerebellar hypoplasia on the right (look for pink tongue, that’s all you can see!).  Behind them in a crate is deaf Scooter, and in a smaller crate are Fluff and Puff Hooligan, kittens who are "barn-cats-in-training" for Beauty’s Barn.  (Click on photo for larger image.)  You can see Fluff and Puff on page 2 of the digital version of our fall newsletter.

The object of today’s vet run:  spay these girls!  Mission accomplished!

While Alayne was on her way to Helena, I drove to the Ovando post office and put the fall newsletters in the mail.

If you aren’t already receiving the newsletter, please e-mail me at steve@rollingdogranch.org with your postal address and we’ll be happy to send you a copy.  Also, don’t forget to let us know about your animal-loving friends and family members who might enjoy getting the newsletter.  (We don’t share our mailing list with anyone, ever.)

 

One of our fabulous volunteers, Laura W. from Helena, came out today to give us a hand.  The weather was cold and drizzly.  I had the perfect project for a day like this:  setting up the stalls in Beauty’s Barn. 

Murdoch’s, a farm and ranch supply outfit in Helena, last week had delivered $5,900 worth of corral panels and stall mats.  Most of the corral panels would be used for the corrals we need to set up outside the barn, while the rest were for the interior stalls.

Alayne took care of all the usual Saturday chores so Laura and I could set to work.  First we had to grade the gravel bed for each stall so the mats would lay completely flat.  Then we lifted each stall mat, one by one, and moved it into position.  This is harder than it sounds, with each mat measuring 6 feet x 4 feet and weighing 96 lbs.  Awkward to say the least!   We laid 36 mats down, edge to edge, on both sides of the barn.

Next we set up the corral panels to form the stalls.  We use Priefert’s utility horse panels, which are lightweight and have smooth, rounded edges.  It took a total of 20 panels to create the six horse stalls.  Four stalls on the east side, two on the west side.

We started about 10 a.m., took a quick lunch break, and by 2 p.m. we were finished.  The photo shows Laura standing at the south door of the barn, with our handiwork behind her.  Towards the other end on the left side you can see where the medical stall and medical room are.

Thanks, Laura!

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Popeye was a tiny kitten with deformed front legs who came to us from Spokane Animal Control this spring at the age of 3 weeks.  As time went by, his legs started to straighten out, and his fearless, playful personality blossomed.  In our summer newsletter — seeing what lay ahead — we titled his story, "He’s trouble!"

A very nice young lady named Carmen U. from Missoula recently adopted him, and today e-mailed us her second update on Popeye.  With Carmen’s permission, here’s what she wrote:

"Popeye is doing well. He’s getting huge.  I’ll have to send a photo soon.  He is a little terror but a sweetie, too.  He loves to play with the dogs.  They wrestle around together — he attacks their faces and their legs and the dogs just roll around and play nice with him.  They play chase in the yard, and Popeye also likes hanging out in the dog kennel.  Maybe he thinks he’s a dog?

He also enjoys cleaning the dogs’ faces and ears.  It’s so cute.  The dogs just lay there so relaxed with their eyes shut.  Popeye and my Blue Heeler BOTH sleep right above my head every night!  It’s not so comfortable for me but THEY sleep through the night, right next to each other, right on my hair. He enjoys knocking over knick-knacks, spreading playing cards all over the living room, and attacking the bedroom curtains, too.  I guess we’ll love him anyway.  🙂

He loves his food and comes running every time he hears me open the metal can that holds his food.  He runs so fast he slides and slams into the wall.  You’d think I never feed him!  Anyway, thanks for giving up the little guy.  He’s great!  We’ve affectionately shortened his name to ‘Pop’ or ‘Poppy’."

Thanks for the update, Carmen!

The photos show what Popeye looked like soon after he arrived at the ranch.  He grew really fast, and we’re not surprised at all that Carmen says he is huge now.  And the way she describes him is EXACTLY how we thought he would be when he grew up!

Popeye’s story is another perfect example of what we’ve seen so often:  Animals who are dumped at shelters because of their disabilities, and then turn out to be absolutely wonderful companions and a delight to their new families.

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Widget, our blind Beagle/Dachshund mix, spends her days developing and then implementing new and innovative sleeping positions in our living room.  She spends her nights in one of our dog cottages, Kelly’s Cottage, but it’s not quite clear to us what she’s actually doing in there.  In the morning, when we let her and the other dogs out, she comes into the house and promptly goes to sleep.  Widget acts like she’s had a hard night out.

I took this photo today at lunchtime.  It shows Widget in a previously unknown sleeping position.  We decided to call this one ‘Beached Porpoise Meets Slumberville.’  You may not be able to tell from the photo, but her head is entirely off the chair and resting on the blue pillow underneath her.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, all the furniture in the living room … with the exception of a single recliner … has been surrendered to canine use.

(Click on photo for larger image.)

We just posted several updates to the sanctuary Web site this evening, including our new arrivals on the Meet the Animals page.  We also posted the online PDF version of our fall newsletter, which will go out in the mail next week.  Look for the newsletter link at the top of the home page.  In addition, there’s also a new "stats" page with quick at-a-glance figures.  Finally, we updated the Beauty’s Barn page with photos of the now-completed new barn, although regular blog readers would have seen those photos a few weeks ago here.

If you aren’t on our mailing list and would like to get our quarterly newsletter in the mail (which has a handy donation envelope in it, too), please e-mail me at steve@rollingdogranch.org.  We don’t share our mailing list with anyone, period.  And if you know of friends or family members who love animals and who would enjoy getting our newsletter, please let us know and we’d be delighted to send them a copy of the latest issue.

We hope you enjoy the updates!

Charlie, our big lovable Dane/Pointer mix, was adopted today by a nice young couple from Missoula.  Neely V. saw Charlie on our Web site a few days ago and called to see if he was available for adoption.  I hesitated.  At first I didn’t know what to say. 

We had NOT adopted Charlie out in the past, even though he wasn’t disabled, because he was the natural ‘alpha’ of the dogs here.  He is so sweet and gentle, and gets along with everyone, that he set a wonderful tone for all the dogs.  We also … if truth be told … loved this dog so much we didn’t think we could part with him. 

(This photo shows Charlie in a patient tug-of-war with little Goldie, one of our blind dogs.  Goldie eventually wore him down and he let her win.)

Yet we maintain a limit on the number of dogs we have at the sanctuary at any one time and try to hold pretty firmly to it.  With a perfectly adoptable, wonderful dog like Charlie counting towards our limit, we ended up saying ‘no’ to a disabled dog somewhere who might have taken that spot.  So in recent months Alayne and I reluctantly decided that we would let Charlie get adopted … but only if the "right" person somehow came along.  And we wouldn’t actively ‘market’ him on the Web as available for adoption.  (Yes, we were conflicted!  Is it that obvious?) 

So when the phone rang earlier this week, I was at first taken aback when Neely asked about Charlie.  Although Alayne and I had made that decision a while ago, I had pretty much forgotten about it.  Now what?

I interviewed her at length, reviewed our usual list of questions, and went through our standard adoption process.  I decided it was okay.  We scheduled a time for her and her husband Jake to come out to meet Charlie.  Today was the day.

Charlie was his usual endearing, charming self.  It’s impossible not to fall in love with this boy.  Neely and Jake spent quite a bit of time with Charlie, took him for a long walk, came back and said, "Could we?"  I took the photo of Charlie with Neely and Jake this afternoon, just before they got in the car to go home to Missoula. 

I told Neely and Jake that Charlie is one of those ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ dogs. He is truly special.  It was sad to see him go, but I know he will be a very happy boy in his new home.

(Click on photos for larger image.)