Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Alayne took our new arrival, tiny Pip, last week to see our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Tanya Donovan. We were concerned about a growth on his neck, as well as his underlying health, given his age and physical condition — he's very, very thin.

In the photo above, Tanya is doing an ultrasound-guided draw of urine from Pip's bladder. During her abdominal screening, she had detected some thickening of the bladder wall and wanted to get a urinanalysis done to see what was going on. It turns out Pip does have a urinary tract infection, which may — or may not — be the cause of the thickening wall. We have started him on antibiotics to clear up the infection, and will recheck his bladder in a couple of weeks to see if that took care of it.

The lump on his neck was benign, thank heavens. It was an inflammatory reaction to something in his past, either an injury or an old injection site. Adding to the good news, his blood work was fine, too.

We had noticed that he just didn't seem to have much of an appetite. (No, not a dental issue.) We'd leave different kinds of yummy food in his crate with him overnight, and while he'd pick and lick at it, every morning much of the food would still be there. He'd even leave our fresh cooked ground beef sitting there. But on that trip to Burlington to see Dr. Donovan, Alayne stopped at a local sandwich shop to get something to eat — and Pip, who was sitting in the front seat next to her, couldn't get enough of her turkey sandwich. Hmm.

Back at the farm last weekend, we fed him some thinly sliced roast beef by hand, which he voraciously ate. And he acted hungry! Was it just "people food" that he had been used to eating? I put another bowl of our cooked ground beef in front of him while he was in his basket bed in the living room. Pip looked at the bowl, then up at me … and ignored it. Strange. Then Alayne had a hunch. She went over to his basket, scooped up some of the ground beef in her fingers, and offered it to him. He devoured it. She offered him more from her hand. He devoured it again. And again.

We had finally cracked the code. This little dog must have been fed by hand his entire life. We suspected someone had held Pip in his or her lap at the table and fed him tidbits from their own meals. That's how he ate (and probably why he was so thin, never getting enough nutrition that way). He was just used to being hand-fed.

We've never seen this before, but now that we know what it takes to get enough food into Pip, he's been having quite a feast these past several days. Our goal now is to help him make the transition from hand-fed to self-fed!

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Here's our newest one, little Pip … and by little I mean 3.5 lbs (1.5 kg) little! He arrived Saturday a week ago, brought by Gale Lang's TLC Pet Transport. Pip came to us from Atlanta Beagle Rescue, which has sent us many blind Beagles over the years.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, "Son, I know Beagles, and that ain't no Beagle."

We'll concede the point. He's a Chihuahua alright. But Michele from Atlanta Beagle Rescue had seen him in a local shelter and asked if we could take him. She offered to pull him and have him fostered until we could get transport arranged. When we saw what his eyes looked like, we couldn't say no.

So he spent a couple of weeks being fostered by Morgan from Altanta Beagle Rescue, who named him Pip — which fits him perfectly! We have no history on him other than he was picked up as a stray … but how does a tiny dog who can barely see wind up as a "stray" in Atlanta, Georgia?

Our ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, graciously agreed to fit him into her schedule last week when she was doing the recheck on Max. Here's a photo of her vet tech Patty doing the initial screening exam while vet tech Rachel holds Pip:

Sarah found his left eye was totally blind, both from a long untreated corneal ulcer (the scarring is still very visible) and from a hypermature cataract. Pip had no visual responses in that eye, and there isn't anything we can do now to restore vision.

His right eye still has vision, though he has a developing cataract in that eye as well which will eventually cause him to go blind.

Pip also has a condition affecting both corneas called corneal endothelial degeneration, which Sarah says is commonly seen in Chihuahuas, Dachshunds and Boston Terriers. She described it this way:

"This means the pumps on the back surface of the corneas have deteriorated and no longer can keep fluid out of the corneas, which leads to edema or a blue-gray cloudy appearance to the eyes. Without treatment, the eyes will become bluer over time and the long-term risks with chronic corneal edema include recurrent corneal ulcers and discomfort."

The treatment options, she told us, include corneal transplants or a procedure called a Gundersen flap, in which a piece of the conjunctiva tissue is grafted onto the cornea. The graft helps "dehydrate" the cornea by allowing another way for the fluid to get out.

And, of course, there's still the issue of the cataract in his remaining visual eye, which means cataract surgery at some point.

Pip is also scheduled to see our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Tanya Donovan, next week for an ultrasound and cancer screening. We found a lump on his neck a few days ago that is worrisome. He's really thin and yet doesn't seem to have a great appetite, so that's also a concern. We don't know how old he is, though the gray on his muzzle suggests he's got plenty of miles on his tires. 

Morgan had given us a heads-up about how Pip "communicates" — by wailing like a human infant. She told us, "He sounds almost exactly like a baby, so you and Alayne can enjoy the sounds of an infant in the house without the worries of a college education. :)"  Holy cow, the first day he was here Pip started wailing from the living room, and it sounded like a baby who needed his diapers changed. In a way, it was: Pip was letting us know he needed to go outside to do his business!

This little guy is just a doll — he is sweet, affectionate, and only wants to lie in your lap or, better yet, snuggle against your neck. He is wonderful with all the other dogs. There are times when he's curled up in his basket bed that he looks just like a newborn deer fawn — though I suspect a fawn is a bit quieter!

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Alayne got this shot of Max rolling with his cone over the weekend. She was on the front porch looking over the railing at him. Even rolling, even upside down, even with a cone on, he never takes his eyes off her. As of today, however, his cone is finally off. Alayne took Max and three other dogs to our specialists in Burlington yesterday, and our ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, pronounced Max "cone-free" after his recheck for his cataract surgery. I'll have another post on that visit soon. But for now, he's one happy boy.

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This boy came to us a couple of weeks ago from an animal control officer in Vermont. Sparky's owners recently went to jail, where they will be staying for a long, long time, and the remaining family did not want any of the dogs left behind. As the animal control officer told me on the phone, "There's no reason this dog should lose his life just because his owners did something really stupid."

Sparky is blind and had spent much of his life tied up to a mobile home. He was emaciated when he arrived, and we thought he also had hip dysplasia because of how he walked. He wasn't neutered, either. He was so thin we wondered if he wasn't in kidney failure or had cancer of some sort. We took him to our vet clinic in Whitefield for a complete work-up and neutering. While his blood work looked fine, including his kidney values, our vet, Dr. Chris Plumley, did not want to neuter Sparky yet because of how thin he was. Chris also didn't think he had hip dysplasia but was suffering from a severe loss of muscle tone — no doubt from having been tied up on a short chain most of his life.

Right now our main job is just getting weight on Sparky and making sure he gets plenty of exercise. The latter he actually does well on his own, since he is in constant motion in the dog yard. He's mostly border collie and has lots of energy, but not in a hyper kind of way. We think he may just enjoy the freedom to be able to move, move, move — all day long — for the first time in his life.

He seems to be blind from retinal atrophy. His eyes are comfortable and "quiet," so that's definitely a plus.

In his first few days here Sparky was almost autistic — remote and not too sure how to relate to people. He'd act surprised when one of us would stop and pet him, as if this was something new (and who knows, it may have been). But by his third day he had figured out that he liked this. I had kneeled down to make over him, and the next thing I knew, he was trying to climb into my lap and had reached up to lick me in the face several times. It was very quick but determined, and the first real sign of affection we'd seen from him. Ever since, he's been a kisser — as we'll show you later in this post.

We put Sparky in the dog yard with our other new arrival Bugsy, who has been sharing it with the two blind Beagles Louie and Willie. Bugsy has, as we mentioned in that original blog post, become a total love-bug. While Alayne and I were out getting photos this morning of Sparky — trying to get him to stand still long enough for a decent shot — Bugsy kept jumping up at me and wanting to be loved. So here are some photos Alayne took of the love session, including the end when Sparky came into the scene.

First, Bugsy is licking away:

You can see a certain someone's head crop into the frame:

Then Sparky figures out where we are:

And closes in for some loving of his own, while Bugsy (unhappily) realizes competition is at hand: 

Sparky starts his own kiss-fest:

But makes the mistake of then nosing Bugsy who is busy trying to kiss me, too:

And that results in Bugsy suddenly snapping at Sparky, sending him scurrying, while I hold on to Bugsy:

The funny thing is that while one dog initially was aggressive towards us, and the other dog was remote when he first came, neither one will leave us alone now when we're with them. Both just can't get enough loving!

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