Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Another happy ending!

Our big lovable lug of a Lab, blind Moose, was adopted this week by our long-time volunteer Rosemary M. of Missoula.  In the photo above, that's Rosemary on the left and her daughter Ana on the right.  I took the photo when they came to pick up Moose on Tuesday. 

Rosemary emailed me yesterday to say, "Just dropping you a feedback note regarding Moose.  He is doing exceptionally well.  Let me rephrase that, the other furbabies are doing exceptionally well with him.  We all knew Moose would be no problem.  The old Dalmatian is grumpy as ever but realizes Moose is no threat to him.  Mr. Beefy, the pug, loves him but can't quite understand why he won't play; although when Mr. Beefy was running circles around Moose at full speed, Moose got on his back and rocked back and forth — that will have to do for Mr. Beefy in terms of Moose's athletic capabilities."

Since Moose loves the dog house with its heated bed on the front porch of Widget's House, we gave Rosemary one of the extra dog houses we had on hand.  (We had a special this week:  "Adopt a dog, get a free dog house!")  She wanted to give Moose the exact same set-up at her home, so she also bought a heated bed for it, too, and Moose is now enjoying his familiar accommodations at her house.  

Here's a shot I took of Moose after I put him in Rosemary's truck on Tuesday morning … you can see he's resumed his morning nap, which we had so rudely interrupted a few minutes before:

And here he is at Rosemary's … one happy fellow:

For a sweet, gentle, blind boy who was abandoned on the Interstate in Montana in February a year ago … well, we couldn't think of a happier ending.  

In her email yesterday, Rosemary wrote:  "It is so nice to take a huge memory of the ranch back with me that will be here to stay."

Thank you so much for adopting Moose, Rosemary! 

He's not at the ranch yet, but he will be our first new arrival in New Hampshire!  A longtime supporter of the sanctuary, Barb W. from Pennsylvania, contacted us a week ago about a blind and deaf Cocker Spaniel who was in a local shelter near her.  He had been found as a stray, wandering in the woods.  The shelter's director had told Barb no one had even looked at the dog in the two months he'd been there, and they would be thrilled if he could come to the sanctuary.  Barb knew we were in the middle of the move and had our hands full, so she offered to foster the dog — named Gabe, like our other blind and deaf boy — until we could make it to New Hampshire and get settled.  We agreed to take him, and Barb immediately went to the shelter and picked him up. 

Not only that, Barb has already taken him to her vet to get an initial work-up and this past Friday, she took him to a veterinary ophthalmologist for an eye exam.  I was in the tractor in the hay barn Friday afternoon, moving hay to the horses, when the phone rang.  It was Barb, calling from the ophthalmologist's office so he could give me a run-down on his findings.  Essentially, Gabe's right eye is non-functional and shrunken — the technical term is phthisical — from undetermined prior disease. 

His left eye is also non-functional but mildly enlarged, or buphthalmic.  (What's up with all the "phth" business in this field of medicine?)  I had noticed this in the photo the shelter had taken of Gabe, which is why I had asked Barb if she could find an ophthalmologist to do an exam.  I was worried about glaucoma, and if that was the case, I didn't want him going untreated until he got to New Hampshire.  It turns out his eye pressure in that eye was very low, despite the appearance.  But there is quite a bit of blood inside the eye, which could be causing the enlargement of the globe.  He also has an old corneal lesion, or wound, as well.  The ophthalmologist told me that there are five different possible scenarios to explain what happened to that eye:  1) primary glaucoma with secondary retinal detachment (causing the bleeding); 2) uveitis which then caused glaucoma and thus the retinal detachment; 3) a bleeding disorder of some sort; 4) a tumor in the eye, which will require follow-up ultrasound to determine (there was too much blood in the eye for him to see all the way through); and 5) trauma of some sort.

Amazingly, the ophthalmologist said that both of Gabe's eyes currently appear comfortable, though he did need some antibiotics for the corneal lesion.

Barb is having additional tests done, including for heartworms, which will determine how much more we can do in the meantime.  If he's heartworm positive, we'll have to hold off on any surgery until we can get him treated for that.

For now, though, Gabe is safe and sound with Barb and her husband Jerry. 
Barb reports that "Gabe is 'mapping' the house and cuddling at night with us.  He loves to find you on the floor and curl right up to you."

Thank you, Barb and Jerry!

—

Some folks have asked us how the move is going.  We are, in a word, swamped.  We've been shipping trailer-loads of equipment and supplies for the past month — every week another shipment leaves for New Hampshire.  We have two different couples hauling for us … one couple is from New York State and they have a pick-up and flatbed trailer, and the other is from Avon, Montana, and they have a semi and flatbed.  The tricky thing was that we needed people who would be able and willing to unload for us at the other end, since we aren't there.  That meant being able to use one of our tractors, which we shipped in an early load, for that purpose.  Fortunately, both couples who are doing the hauling are farm and ranch types who are comfortable operating tractors.  Most truck drivers and people who haul for a living won't touch the cargo — it's your responsibility to unload it.  So this was a key requirement for us.

An enclosed cargo van arrives at the end of this week, for the stuff that can't be shipped on flatbeds.  The freight company will leave it here for several days so we can load it, then they'll hold it in storage for us in Helena until we are in New Hampshire and ready to receive it. 

We've also been working with our small and large animal vets on all the paperwork required to transport the animals, so everything's ready in time.

I am leaving for New Hampshire on May 17th and taking about six of the dogs with me.  I need to be there and make sure we're up and running before the rest of the animals arrive.  Most of the dogs and cats are being picked up on May 24th by the professional pet transportation company.  The first trailer load of blind horses will leave that week as well, and the rest will go in additional loads the following week.  Alayne will have her hands full!  She will stay behind here for a couple of weeks to finish up, ship out the rest of whatever we have left, and then drive out with a few of the remaining dogs (Goldie, Widget, etc.). 

The routine first thing every morning, after we let the dogs out, is to scoop the poop in the various dog yards.  Almost all the dogs at Widget's House go trotting out immediately to "do their business," before heading back to the building to settle in for a nap on the cots and beds on the porch.  This is pretty efficient, because I can scoop up all the new prizes, as well as those left over from the previous evening, and be done for the morning.

There are just a few dogs who didn't get the memo on the timing of how this is supposed to work.  Specifically, blind Moose and the blind Poodle sisters, Molly and Priscilla.  Moose comes out the front door and disappears into a heated dog house on the porch, not to be seen again for some time.  Molly and Priscilla like to take their sweet time before getting around to the necessities of life.  Usually they will finally go potty just after I've finished scooping their yard and have moved on to another one.  Not helpful, that.

But the last is always Moose.  After spending 30 or 45 minutes in the heated dog house, he finally realizes he really needs to go … and only then does he venture out into the yard.  Everyone else is back on the porch.  This morning, with a spring snowstorm underway, I had finished all the yards when … of course, here came Moose out of the dog house.  Oh, brother.  As he ambled off, I went inside to get the camera to take some photos of Mr. Last-To-Go.  Naturally, good blog etiquette means I'm using only one of many different "poses" I captured on camera, but you get the idea. 

The horses — you can see a few by the shed in the background — haven't been fed yet, so they get more than a little impatient with the "late bloomers" over in the dog yards for holding up their breakfast. 

Done with his business, here's Moose on his way back to the porch:

Finally.

She may be blind, she may have lost a leg to one form of cancer, and she may be battling yet another type of cancer, but a rolling Helen is a happy Helen.  I looked out my office window this morning and saw her rolling and rolling in the grass.  She kept at is so long that I had plenty of time to get the camera and go outside to take some photos. 

Based on consultations with the oncologist at Washington State University, Helen is not back on chemotherapy yet.  We are taking her to our vet clinic in Helena next week for another monthly check-up, and after our vets and the oncologist review those latest findings, they'll decide on the next stage of treatment. 

Meanwhile, it appears that rolling might be excellent therapy in and of itself:

This is beautiful Ella … or Bella Ella as I've started calling her … doing what she does every meal time.  Alayne got this photo yesterday evening while I was in the dining room filling the dog bowls with food.  We have a doggie gate that separates the dining room and kitchen from the living room, and Ella comes over and stands up with her one front foot on the gate to monitor the food service staff.  Occasionally she'll even let out a muffled "woof!" if she thinks we're not moving fast enough to dish it out. 

She really has this thing about standing up on her hind legs.  She'll go over to a window and do it to get a better view outside, and of course in the process her one front paw then takes down the blinds.  Please note rumpled blinds in the background!

With every passing day she is becoming more like a normal dog and putting her fears of people behind her.  She no longer hesitates about coming through the door if we're standing there holding it open for her, nor does she run from us any longer.  If we approach her suddenly, Ella will still instinctively turn away and crouch, but now she doesn't flee … she'll stay put, and once we begin loving her up, she relaxes.  It's almost like there's one part of her brain that continues to be "wired for flight" from her past history of abuse, but other parts of her brain have figured out that good things come from these people and it's okay to stand still and wait for them to approach.  We can almost see the tussle between the two emotions in her when this happens.

But at meal time, there's only one emotion we see:  "Feed me!"