Rolling Dog Farm Blog

In my post earlier this week, I mentioned how we let blind Avery stay in his crate in the morning until he's good and ready to come out on his own. Well, in the past several days he's developed a new twist on this — he comes out of his crate and then goes into the crate next door … stays there for a while … and then goes in the next one … and so on. The other morning Alayne found him in blind Louie's crate, which is four crates down from his own, at the end of the row. I took this photo the following day, when he had left his crate and gone into blind Willie's, the first stop on his journey. Each time he sits there, contemplating something (the nature of the universe? the nature of being?), before moving on to the next one. We're not sure what to make of this development, but if it works for him, we're all for it! 

We mailed out our fall newsletter to donors a couple of weeks ago, though it is just now showing up in places like Chicago. We posted a PDF version of it online over the weekend, and it is available here on our website.

A funny thing about that beautiful cover photo of blind and deaf Spinner:  That was not my intended shot for the cover, but I had been struggling to get exactly what I wanted with Spinner on a different bed in the dog wing; a combination of the lighting and her positioning just wasn't working as well as I wanted. She grew tired of me trying to keep her on the same spot "just so," and finally got up and moved across the room to the green bed by the wall. I thought, "oh well, I'll get a couple of extra shots of her over there, I can always use them for inset photos in her newsletter story." It wasn't until I uploaded them to the camera that I realized how spectacular the shot was, and far better than my planned photo. It's as if she knew how best to show herself off.

This is Avery, the blind Beagle from Georgia who arrived back in May, and whose very painful eyes our veterinary ophthalmologist had to remove a few days after he came to us. I had mentioned in that arrival post that he had clearly had a rough life and had been beaten a lot, judging from how he cowered and cringed. One of his "triggers" is being picked up, which can cause him to start howling and peeing submissively.

Ironically, some of these triggers became more pronounced only after we had his eyes removed; the only explanation I can come up with is that he was in so much pain from his eyes that this is what he focused on more than anything. Once the eye pain was gone, it allowed more of his fears from past abuse to come to the fore, and that's what he began to focus on. 

We have learned that he is less afraid about being picked up when there are a bunch of other dogs swirling about him at the same time, all of them jumping up and down and wanting to be picked up. As an example, when we're bringing dogs in for the evening, Avery's often cowering on the ramp by the door, clearly wanting to come inside but too afraid to do so. I'll bend down and make all over him while blind Fuzzy and blind Sophie and the others are milling around excitedly. As I slip an arm under him, I'll do the same with one of the others, and pick both dogs up at the same time. This seems to reassure him that all is well … or, at least, not so bad … which means that while he still may howl a bit, he won't submissively pee all over me.

Other times I will scoop him up while holding on to blind Cedar or blind and deaf Spinner, and as long as he knows the other dog is there and going in as well, he's more comfortable. Using treats and other positive reinforcement techniques don't seem to matter to him; the comfort really comes from having other dogs with him. Success is a no howl/no pee trip into the house, which is happening more often these days.

In the mornings, he is very fearful about coming out of his crate. He loves his crate because it is his safe haven, his personal little den. (He's often at his happiest just after we put him in his crate at night, when he lets out little happy barks.) If Alayne and I try to pull him from his crate, he often will scream and cry out and in general, have a complete melt-down. So we typically just open his crate door while we're letting all the other dogs out and let him decide on his own when he's ready to come out. Some mornings that might not be until 10 a.m. — he's got a wonder bladder! Alayne took that photo one morning last week, as he was beginning to think about leaving the crate … but wasn't ready yet.

We can't imagine the abuse this poor dog suffered in the past. He definitely has the emotional scars to show for it. As we said about three-legged Ella when she first arrived, also full of fear, Avery's real disability is in his head and it's called "distrust." As with Ella, the cure for this is time, patience and love.

Meanwhile, the cure for being peed on is a fresh change of clothes.

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Upcoming TV Show On The Farm

Back in July we had a blog post about a TV crew that was here to do a story for New Hampshire Chronicle on WMUR-TV, Channel 9, in Manchester.  The producer told us last week that the story will air on Wednesday, September 28th, at 7 p.m. Here is the program's webpage with the promo on the piece. After the show airs, they will post a video on their website. At this point I do not know when it will go online, but I will announce it on the blog as soon as we find out.

The other morning Alayne was putting some fresh bedding on the cots outside the center hallway. There are usually three to four cots along the wall, often occupied by sleeping dogs of various types and sizes. When she got to Louie the blind Beagle, he woke up from his slumber but refused to budge. As in, didn't move. Alayne tried to nudge him over so she could spread the blanket out underneath him, but she didn't have any luck getting him to respond. Finally, he raised his head up to look at her ("who, me?"), and she took the opportunity to slip the still-folded blanket in as far as she could get it. He lowered his head, rested it just so on his new pillow, and resumed sleeping.

A very curious thing started happening this summer. Late in the evening, just after it gets dark, frogs begin coming up the dog ramp and onto the front porch. They don't even wait for the dogs to be put inside before they start hopping up the ramp; they are totally unconcerned by the presence of the dogs, some of who can see! The first few times they started doing this, Alayne and I would freak out, thinking at least one or two of the dogs might go after the frogs — so we'd scoop them up and put them back out under the porch or across the fence. But soon it became apparent that the dogs weren't bothering the frogs at all, because we'd come out on the porch to pull dogs in for the night and find two or three frogs hopping around, with dogs laying about. Clearly the frogs knew something we didn't.

On Tuesday night, I opened the porch door to get Madison — the last one still out — and saw a frog headed up the ramp right towards her. I ducked back inside to get the camera, cracked the screen door open a bit, and started photographing. Not only was the frog not worried about Madison (the frog, bear in mind, doesn't know she's blind), he also wasn't concerned about my presence or even the camera flash going off. How laid back can a frog be?

So as I clicked away, he kept hopping along in front of her:

Then, a few seconds later, looking through the lens, I saw the frog make a sudden, darting move with its tongue, and something disappeared inside its mouth. I hadn't noticed anything earlier and didn't know what it was until I uploaded the photos on the camera, but it turned out to be a caterpillar also sauntering across the porch:

Bad timing, dude. Click on the photo for a larger image and you'll be able to see it there, in the space between the boards.

Then it was gone and inside the frog:

"Happy meal" consumed, the frog ventured on down the porch … by which time Madison was finally aware that something was going on here:

The frogs must realize this is a "live and let live" environment — except for caterpillars, of course.

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Okay, so I've had a couple of comments and emails complaining that I didn't do a blog post about Cinder's death. As I've said before, I don't post all of our losses and never have. For example, we lost Dusty, our blind Husky, to cancer last month, too. This wasn't a sign of "disrespect" to Cinder, nor did it have anything to do with the fact that she was a cat. The only reason I even mentioned her loss in the post about Mink was because I knew people would ask about Cinder, since she was one of our last two remaining cats.

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Contest Ends This Sunday — Still No. 3!

The current Shelter Challenge started on July 4th and ends at midnight on September 18th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories … please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.  [Yes, we are still listed as Rolling Dog Ranch for the purposes of the contest, not Rolling Dog Farm.]

Because of your votes, we just won $1,000 as a weekly winner in this round of the Shelter Challenge. Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!

I've posted before about how our big dogs like to lie in the smallest possible dog beds and vice versa. Here's a new twist on that theme. In the front yard we have a large group of dogs that are out during the day together, ranging in size from Labs to Dachshunds. So, of course we set out a large water bucket for the bigger dogs and a small water bowl for the little ones. 

Naturally, they prefer to drink from the other water source. At the top is Belvie, straining to reach the water in the bucket while ignoring the easily accessible bowl at his feet. Meanwhile, the large dogs are naturally drawn to drink from the small bowl:

That's blind Cedar slurping up all the water, while blind Madison waits her turn (there won't be any left). What this means is that their servants are always running out to fill up the small bowl throughout the day — by dipping it into the under-utilized bucket, of course.

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Blog Break

I'm going to take a blog break for next week. Yes, everything's fine, just taking a few days off from blogging to help get caught up on other things. I'll resume posting for the week of September 12th.

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Still No. 3!

The current Shelter Challenge started on July 4th and ends at midnight on September 18th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories … please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.  [Yes, we are still listed as Rolling Dog Ranch for the purposes of the contest, not Rolling Dog Farm.]

Because of your votes, we just won $1,000 as a weekly winner in this round of the Shelter Challenge. Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!