Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Well, that was fast!  Last week one of our supporters, Kathleen R., asked if she could adopt Little Miss Roo after seeing her on the blog.  Last year Kathleen had asked about adopting Dexter, but we had decided early on that he was a "keeper."  Our original intention was to hold on to Roo for a while, get a wheelchair for her, and then think about adopting her out later — if we could bring ourselves to let her go at that point!  But when Kathleen emailed us about Roo, and we realized Kathleen was right here in New Hampshire, just a few hours away in Nashua, we figured this was meant to be.  (Although rumor has it that Dexter secretly emailed Kathleen and "suggested" she consider adopting Roo … and quickly.  Dexter vehemently denies it.)

So Kathleen came up on Friday afternoon to meet Roo, who greeted her new Mom with lots of little kisses.  

Kathleen will pick up where we left off in getting Roo's wheelchair made and fitted for her.  (We had already been in touch with the folks at Doggon' Wheels.)

As you can see from the photos, Dexter came out to say good-bye, and in this shot he clearly appears to be giving Roo a farewell kiss:

But he denies that, too.  He says there was a fly on Kathleen's shirt he was trying to get.

In any case, we were delighted that Roo was going to such a wonderful home, where she will be doted on around the clock.  Thank you, Kathleen!

(Dachshund chorus:  "Woo-hoo!  Thank YOU, Kathleen!")

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Also on Friday, our new Web designer, Amy Austin from Littleton, NH, came out to meet us and the animals for the first time, along with her colleague Kim.  Kim's girls kindly made some very tasty and creative dog cookies for the gang here:

They were a hit when I handed them out Friday night at bed time!

Please welcome our newest arrival, an adorable 9-month old female Chihuahua named Roo who came yesterday.  She was born without her front legs.  A local rescue group, Riverside Rescue in Lunenburg, Vermont, had a breeder show up at their door last Tuesday with Roo.  Sharon from Riverside Rescue emailed me on Wednesday to ask if we could take her, and we said yes.  So Sharon dropped Roo off at our vet clinic in Whitefield for a medical check-up and a spay, and then on Saturday, Kim from the clinic was kind enough to bring her out to us. 

We're not sure who named her Roo — we think it was the breeder — presumably because she looks a bit like a kangaroo when she's up on her back legs:

Although she can hop around, she doesn't stay up for long and ends up scooting around on her chest.  So we will be contacting our friends at Doggon' Wheels for a quad wheelchair for this little girl.  Then she'll look like a kangaroo in a go-cart!

Yes, we do know about Faith, the two-legged dog who's made the rounds on the Internet for a number of years now.  Faith basically walks on her back legs and does just fine that way.  But Roo isn't able to do that — she can hop a couple of times on her back legs, or maybe four or five times if she gets really excited, but soon she has to drop to the ground and rest on her chest.  Then she'll hop and slide, using her chest to balance herself as she moves forward.  So far she doesn't have pressure sores, but her chest is bald in that spot and thus a problem would develop in time if we let it.

However, this doesn't really matter as far as Roo is concerned, because the only place she wants to be is in our arms, not hopping around on the floor!  She is a total lovebug, and her little tail twitters so fast you think it might just fall off.  If I walk over to her when she's on the bed, she will hop over to my feet, stand up, lean against my leg, and look up at me.  At that point it is impossible not to pick her up and hold her.  (She knows this.) 

Here's Roo reaching for Alayne:

She is great around the other dogs, and doesn't mind at all if they come over to check her out.  But speaking of other dogs, the Dachshunds are more than a little upset that they're now facing some serious competition, i.e., they no longer have a monopoly on the "small and cute department."  The Dachshunds got together last night and decided unanimously, 7-0, to vote Roo off the island.  However, since this particular island is run by benevolent dictators who can ignore the wishes of certain self-interested and petulant inhabitants, we annulled the Dachshund vote and told the assembled rabble to, in effect, "get over it as fast as your short legs can carry you."  They've spent much of Sunday walking by Roo and casting nervous glances over their shoulders at the tiny 5-pound (2.27 kg) thing on the bed.

Although Roo is not the first dog to arrive since we came to New Hampshire — blind and deaf Gabe the Cocker was — she is our first-ever New England dog. So please say hello to little Miss Roo!

 

Alayne and I were sitting on the deck after dinner the other evening when we heard blind Widget start woo-woo-wooing from inside the house.  Sometimes she will woo-woo-woo when she wants help getting out of a chair, sometimes she will do this to demand food from us while we're eating, and sometimes she'll do this because, well, she likes the sound of her own voice.  But this determined woo-woo-wooing kept going, so I went inside to see what the Widge was up to. 

I found her in the kitchen, woo-woo-wooing … in anticipation? … in frustration? … because she was oh-so-close to snatching our left-over dinner off the counter.  Oh-so-close as in inches.  As in, the inches she might have had if her legs were normal Beagle ones and not those confounded Dachshund legs she was born with.

Usually when she attempts a food heist, she's coy and quiet about it, even if brazen.  But this woo-woo-wooing while trying to steal the food is akin to a burglar setting off the burglar alarm himself and then breaking into the house.

She didn't even care that I was in the kitchen, and she continued trying to figure out how she could grab the oven pan off the counter while I went to get the camera.  The only indication that she realized law enforcement had arrived on the scene is the dropped tail; an upright, bobbing tail is a confident Widget, while the dropped tail is the "uh-oh-I'm-not-so-sure-about-this-anymore" Widget.  Her confidence about pulling off a successful heist had wilted, in other words, even as her determination endured.

After taking the photo for our evidence files, I promptly took her into custody and escorted her out of the kitchen and onto the deck, where she was placed in detention.

Of course, the laundry baskets made the trip to New Hampshire too, along with everything else.  We weren't about to leave any of these "beds" behind.  As you can see, blind Goldie has commandeered the one in the living room, which is at the moment blocking the door to the basement behind her.  These baskets are just as popular here as they were back in Montana!

Today I picked up the three dogs I had taken in to the Whitefield vet clinic yesterday for regularly scheduled dentals — blind Widget, blind Madison and Dexter T. Dickens.  Long-time blog readers may recall that Dexter had needed emergency oral surgery in California in late 2008 before we could bring him out to the ranch, and among the many teeth he had removed then was his upper right canine.  He had more teeth removed during his dental last year in Montana.  And two more teeth are gone as a result of his latest dental here, including his upper left canine.  (He's now left teeth behind in three states — literally from coast to coast — perhaps the first dog with that distinction.  Hmm.)

Since he first arrived, he had sported an endearing "snaggle-toothed" look on one side of his mouth — you can see it in the photos on that original blog post — but now he's got a double snaggle-tooth expression.  So it's twice as endearing!

I was going to use a different headline for this post, but then I looked again at the photo we took this afternoon and realized he really did look like a little old fella who'd misplaced his dentures!