Rolling Dog Farm Blog

I took this shot on Friday night as we were starting to put the dogs up.  That's Daisy on the left and Bailey on the right in their "boats," as we call them.  These upside-down open crates are perfect for the incontinent twins.  It makes cleaning up after them in the morning a lot easier, and they like having that "convertible" feeling with the open top.  We elevate the boats to make it easier to pick them up and carry them outside, rather then having to bend down to the floor to get them.  (No, they are not going to jump or climb out and hurt themselves; we've had the boats on the floor for a long time first, and they've never been able to get out by themselves.  Because of their neurological problems, neither Daisy nor Bailey has the leg strength or agility to climb over the side of their boats.)

In the boat is a thick West Paw bed, and just before we tuck them in, we give them a soft fleece blanket to burrow under — on Friday night it was the Winnie the Poo blankets you see hanging over the edge of the boat.  We have a bunch of different blankets, these two just happened to be in the laundry rotation that day. (Although very cute for the blog, I must say!)

As for cleaning up, on the left of Daisy's boat is the red basket of cleaning supplies, and behind it is a stack of fresh towels for wrapping around the peein' wee'uns before carrying them outside in the morning (to avoid a 7:30 a.m. squirting on one's clothes, which is not how we like to start the day, needless to say).

Bailey and Daisy only worry that one day we might decide to take their boats down to the pond to see if they'd float.  So if they ever heard Alayne or me say, "Hey, kids, let's go boating!," there are going to be two very nervous Dachshunds here.

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Still 2nd place as of Sunday!

Please keep voting for the sanctuary in the Shelter Challenge — the votes are adding up!  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.

It was thanks to all of your amazing votes that we won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the final Shelter Challenge of 2009, and we came in fourth nationwide in the first Shelter Challenge earlier this year, winning $3,000.  So this is serious money and can really make a difference for our disabled animals!  Please help us win this round of the contest by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too.  Thank you!

Once we got to New Hampshire, Alayne and I joked we needed to change the name of the sanctuary from Rolling Dog Ranch to Sleeping Dog Farm for a couple of reasons.  First, in New England large acreages like ours are called farms, not ranches.  Second, the dogs do a whole lot more sleeping than anything else.  That's blind Goldie snoozing in the living room; she's almost always in one of those two Ikea chairs.  Alayne says sometimes she gets drowsy from just looking at all the sleeping dogs around us. 

Alas, a quick Google search shows there are at least two Sleeping Dog Farms in existence … one right next door in Vermont, the other a retreat in British Columbia.  Oh well.  But we weren't really thinking about changing the name … not to worry!  Besides, the dogs think they're already living at a retreat.

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Still 2nd place as of Thursday!

Please keep voting for the sanctuary in the Shelter Challenge — the votes are adding up!  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.

It was thanks to all of your amazing votes that we won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the final Shelter Challenge of 2009, and we came in fourth nationwide in the first Shelter Challenge earlier this year, winning $3,000.  So this is serious money and can really make a difference for our disabled animals!  Please help us win this round of the contest by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too.  Thank you!

One of the funny things about the blind Poodle sisters is how they nap when they're outside: almost always joined at the hip in some fashion.  And if not the hip, then the shoulder, neck, or back.  Joined in one way or another.  I've been meaning to build a portfolio of these various positions, but for now, here are just two photos showing what I mean.  The one above I took this morning in the front yard. 

Here's one I took a few weeks ago, before they went to the groomers:

I keep waiting for the day when they are lined up perfectly symmetrical, like two bookends. 

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Update on Ella:  She arrived safe and sound on Sunday evening.  Jennifer called as soon as she got there.  More on her in a subsequent post, but suffice to say Ella has settled in and Jennifer said she was wagging her tail when she saw Gabe that evening!

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Still 2nd place as of Tuesday!

Please keep voting for the sanctuary in the Shelter Challenge — the votes are adding up!  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.

It was thanks to all of your amazing votes that we won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the final Shelter Challenge of 2009, and we came in fourth nationwide in the first Shelter Challenge earlier this year, winning $3,000.  So this is serious money and can really make a difference for our disabled animals!  Please help us win this round of the contest by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too.  Thank you!

Well, we knew someone would be lucky enough to adopt this beautiful three-legged girl, but we were thrilled beyond belief when two very special people turned out to be the ones!

Remember Paul and Jennifer, who adopted blind and deaf Gabe from us back in May?

Yes, they're adopting Ella, too!  They had fallen in love with Ella when they met her at the ranch after they flew out from California to get Gabe.  So Alayne and I were delighted when they asked if they could adopt our Bella Ella!  Their original plan was to fly to New Hampshire this fall and pick her up, but scheduling the time off together to make the trip was proving difficult, so we offered to send Ella out to them to make it easier all the way around.  Just picture them with their arms around Gabe and Ella!

We arranged with Gale Lang of TLC Pet Transport, whose company drove the crew out to New Hampshire for us, to take Ella to California for us.  Gale's team picked up Ella yesterday afternoon.  I will admit, I was an emotional wreck saying goodbye to this sweet girl.  The driver was a little shook-up to see me crying as I handed Ella over to them.  She hadn't been with us long — only since February — but she had really made an impact on us.

She had come so far since first arriving as a frightened, please-don't-come-anywhere-near-me kind of dog.  In my original blog post on her arrival, I had said that her real disability was in her head — her fear of people.  But her fears soon began to fade as she watched the other dogs interact with us, and before we knew it, Ella actually became jealous!  It was impossible for us to make over another dog without having her shoehorn her way in on the action — a development we loved to see!

Ella has such a soft, gentle personality — she's as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.  I know Gabe will enjoy having her company, that's for sure!  Paul and Jennifer have told us how much they adore Gabe, and we know they will adore Ella just as much, too.

A couple of weeks ago Ella finished the final round of her heartworm treatment, and she came through it just fine.  That meant she was ready to travel.

So yesterday we hugged her and kissed her and sent her on her way to California.  Paul and Jennifer have promised to send photos of Ella with them after she arrives, and I will get those on the blog. 

Thank you so much, Paul and Jennifer!

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Wow — up to 2nd place as of Friday morning!

Please keep voting for the sanctuary in the Shelter Challenge — the votes are adding up!  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.

It was thanks to all of your amazing votes that we won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the final Shelter Challenge of 2009, and we came in fourth nationwide in the first Shelter Challenge earlier this year, winning $3,000.  So this is serious money and can really make a difference for our disabled animals!  Please help us win this round of the contest by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too.  Thank you!

I was working in my office this morning on the second floor of the "people wing" of the house when I heard a "thud!" from the living room below, and then the sound of magazines and books hitting the floor.  I hurried down the stairs and that's what I found waiting for me:  our two blind Poodles, Molly and Priscilla, both trying to fit in the same chair.  One of them — Priscilla, I suspect — had clearly leaped into it, pushing it back and knocking things off the end table and on to the floor. 

If the girls appear a bit different, it's because I opted for a "no muff, no fluff" hair-do at their new groomer here in New Hampshire a couple of weeks ago.  When they first came to us back in 2008, they were beautifully groomed and had the fluffy ears and the "mop top," so that's what I had the groomers in Montana continue to do.  But new state, new look!  It's sleeker and more natural looking, and the girls seem to like it this way.

That chair is usually what blind Widget sleeps in during the day, and while I was taking the photos of the two sisters, Widget came over to assess the situation:

She couldn't quite believe that not only was there another dog in her chair, there were two dogs in her chair, which really puzzled her, so she came up for a closer inspection:

She must have decided that looming wasn't a good option in this case, and turned back:

Leaving the two girls looking, well, still a bit crowded:

The stair-step ramp in the foreground is a new one we just purchased to help the smaller dogs like Widget and the Dachshunds get in those chairs without having to jump up or down.  Our old ones were made of styrofoam which inevitably got chewed up.  This new ramp is the perfect height, but because Priscilla pushed the chair back so far, the camera angle makes the ramp look higher than it really is.  Needless to say, it would have been far more graceful if Priscilla had actually used the ramp instead of leaping into the chair!

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Please keep voting for the sanctuary in the Shelter Challenge — as of Tuesday morning, we were already at No. 10 nationwide and No. 1 in New Hampshire!  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.

It was thanks to all of your amazing votes that we won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the final Shelter Challenge of 2009, and we came in fourth nationwide in the first Shelter Challenge earlier this year, winning $3,000.  So this is serious money and can really make a difference for our disabled animals!  Please help us win this round of the contest by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too.  Thank you!

Earlier this year in March, I had a blog post about one of our volunteers, Kate — who had adopted blind Luke from us — moving in with Wendy, who had adopted blind Stoney and blind and deaf Baron from us.  Well, Kate recently sent us this photo of the three roommates at the PetFest in Missoula.  The photo reminded me of the expression, "Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while."  A lady who was at PetFest with her dog had come over to feed little treats to Kate and Wendy's brood, and then left.  The three dogs were convinced she must have dropped some treats on the ground and set off to find them — with their noses leading the search mission.

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Some readers have asked about the wood floors:  So far they actually haven't been much of a problem for the dogs.  I think that's because most of them are blind, and blind dogs tend to be very cautious and careful in their movements, and generally aware of the ground surface or texture they're on.  I can recall an occasional slip or slide the first week or two when a dog was moving too fast, but they've all adapted just fine.  They were used to linoleum floors at the ranch in Montana, so this isn't that different.

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Okay, everybody, here we go!  After taking a break from the last contest (though we still won the $1,000 prize for winning the most votes in Montana — thank you!), we are ready to make another run at the Animal Rescue Site's new Shelter Challenge!  It begins tomorrow, Monday, September 20th, and ends on December 19th.  Grand prize this time is $10,000.  

Please note:  We are now in New Hampshire.  The state code is NH.  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.

It was thanks to all of your amazing votes that we won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the final 2009 Shelter Challenge, and the $3,000 third-place prize earlier in 2009.  So this is serious money and can really make a difference for our disabled animals!  Please help us win this round of the contest by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too.  Thank you!

Beginning on Monday, you can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

This is blind Helen, doing what she does best:  sleeping with her tongue out.  I saw her lying on the floor of the "people wing" of the house the other day, and it looked like her tongue had been glued to the floor.  When Helen is sleeping, about half the time she has her tongue out.  I'm not sure why, and while we occasionally see other dogs sleeping with their tongues hanging out, with Helen it's a very common occurrence.

Yes, that's our living room … not much there, a couple of chairs, an end table or two, and then dog beds and laundry basket-beds taking up most of the floor space.  It's hard to tell from this photo, but Helen had been on a tan West Paw bed just behind her but had gotten off to sleep on the hard floor.  Why?  Well, your guess is as good as ours.  That's in the same category as the tongue.  It's for dogs to do and people to wonder why. 

And as for the floor … you can see from the multitude of scratches in front of Helen that a wood floor is not exactly the ideal surface for a place with this many dogs.  Not only are their doggie toenails hard on it, but the seams between the planks are a real problem for cleaning when one of them has an accident.  (Toothpick, anyone?)  So somewhere on our long list of things to do in the future is a floor project to sand them down and then provide a protective coating of some sort.

That thing you see hanging on the door to the basement is a pine-cone wreath made from a straw hat.  It was there when we bought the place, and I had planned to take it down and get rid of it when I first moved in back in May.  Alas, I didn't act fast enough:  When Alayne arrived, she immediately saw rustic charm in it.  So while I say it goes, she says it stays … and there's no doubt who wins this one, eh?

Enough of the questionable furnishings, back to Helen:  She is now on a new chemotherapy drug called chlorambucil, which the oncologist at Washington State University switched her to after Helen's nearly fatal gastric hemorrhaging last December.  Following that episode, we gave Helen a "chemo holiday" of several months before resuming treatment, and so far she's doing fine on it.  No side effects at all. 

If Helen could see, however, I have no doubt she would agree with me on the pine-cone-hat thing.

Alayne got this photo of our recent arrival, blind Lucy, hanging out with some of her new friends last week.  That's blind and deaf Katie closest to the camera, her brother Spencer next to her (of course), and blind Austin the Beagle.  Lucy at first was very timid around other dogs, but as I predicted in that blog post about her arriving, it was only a few days before she joined in the canine festivities. 

Two days after Alayne took that photo above, I saw Lucy parading around the dog yard with a way-too-big-for-a-Dachshund Kong toy.  I still don't know how she managed to get her mouth around it, but she did.  By the time I came back with the camera, she had settled down to chew on it:

That's blind Willie on the left.  Lucy is in front of one of the big dog houses we brought with us from Montana.  The back of it — right behind Lucy — has sliding wooden doors that we can keep open on warm, sunny days so they get a nice breeze through them.  When the weather turns brisk, we can close those doors.  We try to keep dog beds inside them, but as you can see, usually they get pulled out.  In this case, Lucy was clearly enjoying lying on a bed in the sunshine, chewing on her oversized Kong!