Rolling Dog Farm Blog

For all of you sweltering in August heat somewhere, here’s something to consider:  This morning when we got up, the temperature was 26 degrees and there was frost on the ground.  How’s that for an August morning?

Here’s a photo I took at 7 a.m., just before the sun rose above the mountain range to our east.  This is our disabled dog building, Widget’s House.  You’re looking west, and the Swan Range is in the distance.  If you click on the image for a larger version, you may be able to see the frost on the grass in the foreground.

Our first frosts are usually in August or in early September.  It’s always a brisk reminder that winter in the northern Rockies is not far away!

After yesterday’s discouraging news about Kodiak, we are now just eagerly waiting until we can bring him back to the ranch.  This morning he was pretty doped up … even though they didn’t find anything operable, Kodiak still had the equivalent of major back surgery.  By this afternoon he was awake and feeling better, Dr. Lawrence told us.  We are going to leave him at the hospital in their care until Saturday, when our indispensable volunteer, Jerry Black, will drive over to Spokane to pick him up for us. 

Late this afternoon I received an e-mail with several images taken from Kodiak’s myelogram.  Dr. Jeff Siems, a board-certified veterinary radiologist who works in the same building as our surgeons, had converted the myelogram images to jpegs and e-mailed them to us.  Dr. Siems then patiently walked me through the images on the phone and explained what I was looking at.  Thank you, Dr. Siems! 

The image here is probably the best one that illustrates the compression problem in Kodiak’s spine.  (Click on photo for bigger version.)  You can see the vertebrae and the three vertical spaces … the intervertebral discs … between them, starting on the left.  Then, look for the horizontal sheath .. or dura mater … that runs across the vertebrae from left to right. That’s the watertight sac that holds the spinal cord.  Look for the second (or middle) intervertebral disc … you can see where the sheath is compressed.

It appears more pinched underneath, right where the intervertebral disc is, but Dr. Siems explained that the biggest problem is the compression that occurs on the top side of the sheath.  The compression extends across parts of two vertebrae.  The sheath should be a uniform thickness from one end of this image to the other.  It’s not.

Our veterinary surgeon in Spokane, Dr. Howard Lawrence, called this afternoon at 2:30.  Kodiak was on the operating table with his back opened up.  What he had found wasn’t good.

There is a sheath or membrane of connective tissue called the dura mater that surrounds the spinal cord and holds the spinal fluid.  It’s basically a watertight sack that protects the cord.  This sheath had completely calcified in one spot  … the surgeon said it was almost solid bone 2 millimeters thick … and was compressing the cord.   

The condition is called dural ossification.  Dr. Lawrence said this is the first case he’s seen where it is so severe that it compresses the spinal cord.  This is why Kodiak can’t get up on his own and why he falls down once he starts walking for more than a short distance. 

Unfortunately, there isn’t anything he can do to relieve the pressure.  Trying to chip away at the calcified sheath could damage the spinal cord itself.  Kodiak has multiple areas along the spine where the dural ossification is occurring, but only one area where it’s causing cord compression.

He will most likely get worse as the ossification continues.  Given the prognosis, Dr. Lawrence said we should consider not bringing Kodiak out of anesthesia but putting him to sleep while he was still on the operating table.

I didn’t know what to think or even say.  We had already scheduled euthanasia for this dog once before.  I wasn’t ready then to let him go then.  I finally decided this wasn’t the time either.  I just see too much happiness in this dog’s face … despite his problems, he still enjoys life.

I asked Dr. Lawrence to close Kodiak up and bring him out of anesthesia.  I told him that I want Kodiak at least to get a chance to enjoy the rest of summer, laying on his bed on the porch.  If we see a rapid decline, or any sign of suffering, then we’ll let him go.

But not yet.  He’s coming home in a couple of days.

To Jan and Wayne in Seattle, who paid for the myelogram and surgery, thank you for letting us give him this chance. 

Kodiak, the big Husky who came to us from Missoula Animal Control 10 days ago, is on his way to Spokane to see our board-certified veterinary surgeons.  We loaded this hefty boy into the back of the truck and Alayne left about 11 a.m.  Kodiak looked pretty happy sitting on his big bed.  You can see our first post on Kodiak here.

His appointment is tomorrow morning.  The surgeons will first do a myelogram (injecting traceable fluid into the sac surrounding the spinal cord), which should help them identify where the neurological problem is.  It will also tell them if it’s operable.  If it is, Kodiak will go straight into surgery.

For more background information on myelograms in dogs, go here.

There is a chance the myelogram may not reveal anything, and also a chance that even if it does pinpoint a tumor or lesion, the surgeon can’t operate on it.  So at this point all we can do is wait and keep our fingers crossed.

Today we discovered that our beautiful blind mare Lena has developed a problem with her right eye. We noticed a small eruption on the surface of her cornea.  I could see at a distance that something was wrong because her eyelids were a little puffy, and she just didn’t look at me the way she normally does.  (Blind horses still look, they just don’t see.)  So I went up to investigate and found a strange looking thing on her eye.

This is a photo I took this evening … click on the photo to enlarge it and you may be able to see what I’m talking about.  The spot is at about the 10 o’clock position … if you see the light oblong shape in the back of the eye, it’s on the left side of that.  The inside of her eye also now looks very different from the inside of her left eye.  Something odd is going on.

Small eye problems can quickly mushroom into major problems, and they’re often painful as well.  Thus I called our equine vet, Bill Brown, and found him enjoying a beautful Saturday afternoon on his sailboat on Flathead Lake.  We discussed what I was seeing occur in her eye, and he thought it might be a corneal stromal abscess.

With Bill on the phone, I pulled out our favorite medical book (Brian Gilger’s Equine Ophthalmology) and started reviewing with him the treatment options recommended in the book for these abscesses.  Of course, Bill is at a disadvantage because he can’t see the horse and has to rely on my description of the problem, but we’ve been through lots of eye issues together.

Bill also knows that I am neurotic about Lena … I am absolutely certain that she is the most beautiful horse in the universe.  I also call her my ‘red-headed girlfriend.’  (Alayne just rolls her eyes.)  This second photo of Lena was taken earlier this summer by Amber Chenoweth, a friend and supporter of the sanctuary from Seattle.  (And a wonderful photographer!)  Click on the photo for a larger image.  This is horse perfection, ladies and gentlemen.  She is as sweet and adorable as she is beautiful. 

So Bill suggests we begin treating her with two types of eye ointment, a systemic antibiotic (trimethoprim-sulfa), and bute to make her comfortable.  He also has me take a Q-tip soaked in a solution and gently tap the eruption point with it; this may help it open up and drain to the exterior of the eye, rather than rupture inside.

Alayne and I gathered up the supplies and headed out to treat this gorgeous horse.  (There I go again.)  Gentle Lena patiently let me tap her eyeball with the damp Q-tip, squirt copious amounts of ointment in her eyes, flush a 60 cc syringe of oral antibiotics down her throat, and top it off with 2 grams of bute paste in her mouth. 

We’ll have a better idea tomorrow of what we’re dealing with.  And Bill offered to cut his weekend short and head back to Missoula if things got worse.  Hopefully we can keep the eye stable and comfortable until Monday. 

A few days ago we had two cats come to us from a cruelty case in the Flathead Valley.  A woman had been found with more than 100 cats and 14 dogs in a house.  Cat feces covered the floors, countertops and every other conceivable surface.  In many places the feces were 6 inches deep.  You can read a recent newspaper story about the case here. 

The local Humane Society had asked if we could take two of the cats they considered unadoptable:  a deaf white male with two different colored eyes, and a one-eyed female with a funky tail.  The deaf one turned out to be an adorable, loving, purring fellow … but very sick with a chronic upper respiratory infection and some dehyrdration.

The female is, well, terrified.  She has not come out of the litterbox she’s been hiding in for days.  We learned she had spent her entire life in the woman’s bedroom in this awful house, had never been around other people, and had no socialization.  The cat seems otherwise healthy.  So far all I’ve really seen of her is the top of her head and her one eye peering out over the edge of the litterbox in the isolation cottage. 

I took the deaf one in to the vet today.  His upper respiratory infection had started responding to medication but he continued to seem a bit dehydrated, and his fur doesn’t feel right.  So we’re going to run some tests and find out what else may be going on with him.  He is a sweet boy and a real talker.

I just can’t imagine what it must have been like to live in those conditions. 

This is blind Scout, a big strapping Appaloosa who arrived this evening.  He belonged to a Missoula-based outfitter, Rick A., who could not keep a blind horse.  Outfitting is a tough business to make money in, and generally outfitters can’t keep horses they can’t use.  To keep Scout safe, Rick had left him in a corral with a gentle mule for company.

We had agreed a few months ago to take this horse later in the summer, and today was the day.  After Rick unloaded Scout, I took him by the halter and showed him the boundaries of his new corral and shed.  We walked along, tapping on the corral panels as we went.  Three times around and Scout had it down.

We think we’re going to pair up Scout with Radar, the blind mare who came from the Idaho Humane Society just 10 days ago.  She’s almost ready to finish her quarantine period and needs a buddy.  By the way, we decided to rename Radar … that’s her in this photo … something different.  We just couldn’t see calling a horse ‘Radar.’  So we named her Madison instead. 

Speaking of names, folks, we have a problem.  We ALREADY have a blind horse named Scout.  Now that’s confusing.  How about a blind horse naming contest?  If you’d like to suggest a name for ‘new’ Scout … and we pick it … we’ll send you a custom Rolling Dog Ranch hat!

Today we had a call from a wonderful couple in Seattle, Jan R. and Wayne S.  They had been reading our blog and following Kodiak’s story.  Jan and Wayne have been fabulous long-time friends and supporters of the sanctuary.  They had read that Kodiak’s myelogram and potential surgery would cost about $2,000. 

So they called this morning to say they were putting a check for $2,000 in today’s mail for Pappy’s Fund — our emergency medical fund launched last month — and wanted the money used for Kodiak’s medical care.

When Alayne got off the phone and came to my office to tell me the news, I just sat here and stared out the window in disbelief.  When we get a gift like that, we frankly are just overwhelmed.  It can be really emotional for us.  It’s hard to explain  just how grateful we are for that kind of gift … and how humbling it can be, too.  We felt exactly the same way when we received the initial grant for Pappy’s Fund.

Jan and Wayne, bless you.

After a few minutes, I pulled myself together, picked up the phone, and called the surgeon in Spokane, Dr. Lawrence.  We scheduled Kodiak’s appointment for next Tuesday the 23rd.  Alayne will drive him over Monday afternoon, stay for the myelogram and surgery, and then come home.  Our incredible go-everywhere volunteer, Jerry Black, has offered to drive to Spokane and pick up Kodiak when he’s ready to be released later in the week. 

This, of course, is all dependent on the surgeon finding something operable.  That we have no control over.  But Kodiak will get the best chance we can give him.

For Kodiak, today was about the same as yesterday … little mobility. He was able to walk a bit more at mid-day, but this evening he could barely move again once I got him up. 

We have changed his feeding schedule to try and time his need to poop better, but so far not much progress there.  Yet his spirits remain high.

Wobbles, on the other hand, is doing MUCH better.  His temperature was down to normal last night, and remained normal all day today.  He’s back to his old self.  Baytril is truly one of those wonder drugs.  Here’s a photo I took of Wobbles this evening before dinner … he was rolling around on the dog bed in the living room.  (Neither the cats nor the horses, who all roll,  understand why we called this place the Rolling ‘Dog’ Ranch.  They think it’s a bit species-centric.)

This morning when I went over to Widget’s House to let the dogs out, I found Kodiak laying in a pile of poop.  It was smeared all over him and the floor.  The poor guy just can’t hold it overnight, so every morning I have to clean him and the floor.  He tries to get out of his mess but can’t, and generally ends up smooshing it around. 

The alarming thing is that he could barely walk this morning.  I’d hoist his rear legs up, he’d get going, but then he’d walk only about 10 feet before his hind legs would give out.  I’d go over, lift him up again, off he’d go … and plop! … down he’d go.  Usually once he gets going he can cover quite a bit of ground.  Not today. 

What’s discouraging is we’ve had no visible response to the prednisone treatment.  Today put the exclamation point on that.  So I called our specialist in Missoula, Dr. Dave Bostwick, and asked, "Now what?"

Dave said the "what" would be a myelogram to determine if there’s a lesion or tumor on his spinal cord.  If we found one that was operable, he’d go straight to the operating room for surgery.  Next I called our board-certified surgical specialists in Spokane, who would do that kind of surgery.  I spoke with Dr. Howard Lawrence of Veterinary Surgical Specialists about our options for Kodiak.

Howard told me that a myelogram, even at Kodiak’s age, would be feasible and might tell us what was wrong.  But, he cautioned, it might turn out to be something that they couldn’t fix surgically. Spinal tumors can be very problematic.  He said that sometimes what they find isn’t operable and the animal is euthanized while still under anesthesia.  And there was always a possibility that the myelogram might show nothing to explain his problem.  Yet it could be the only option we have. 

I asked about costs.  The myelogram would be about $800-$900.  If surgery followed, the total bill would be  about $2,000, including follow-up care in the hospital.  I told Howard that Alayne and I would have to talk and decide what to do.

This is always the issue we wrestle with:  How much can we afford to spend on one animal?  We just spent nearly $2,000 on Pappy last month.  And yet we have never made a medical decision based on cost.

Kodiak wasn’t the only medical case we had today.  Our wonderful cat Wobbles — he has a neurological condition called cerebellar hypoplasia — didn’t look right last night.  Sure enough, he had a temperature of 104 degrees.  Wobbles had endured a bad case of pneumonia a few months ago … he spent a week in the hospital before recovering … and it started out this way.

We put Wobbles on antibiotics last night and today called our other veterinary internal medicine specialist, Dr. Britt Culver, of Montana Veterinary Specialists in Helena.  Britt advised us to start him on Baytril, a high-powered antibiotic, and to keep checking Wobbles’ temperature.  If he stays at 104 for another day, we’ll need to get him back to the hospital.  His last stay ended up costing $825.

Is it any wonder we’ve already spent more than $22,000 in vet bills so far this year?

With 160 acres of grassland, pasture management is an important part of what we do here. What you see in the photo is our new chain harrow, which is used to drag the fields.  This breaks up manure clumps, scattering them in small pieces across the ground so it can fertilize the grass.  Dragging also aerates the soil, de-thatches, and does other good things for the pastures.

Notice I said "new" chain harrow.  It arrived in multiple pieces on two pallets, weighing 584 pounds.  Assembly required.  Now, I don’t know about you, but anytime I see something that says "assembly required," I head for the hills. 

Except in this case I was able to call two fabulous volunteers, Amy Z. and Nate L., and ask if THEY would like to assemble this monster instead.  Nate’s a civil engineer and was raised on a ranch, so this kind of thing is a piece of cake for him.  That’s Amy and Nate in the photo.  (Click on photo for larger image.)

They arrived yesterday evening and started the project.  This morning, after some final adjustments in the clear light of a new day, we took the harrow for a test drive.  It was just awesome.  Thank you, Amy and Nate!