Rolling Dog Farm Blog

After blind Helen had a terrible experience with gastrointestinal hemorrhaging last December as a side-effect of her chemotherapy, our vets decided it was time for a "chemo holiday."  It was going to be only for a few weeks, but the hemorrhaging really took a lot out of Helen, and she just wasn't herself.  So we elected to extend her chemo holiday until she seemed to have enough strength back.  Finally, about a week ago, I took her to our vet clinic in Helena for a baseline exam before restarting the chemo.  Amazingly, the chest X-rays showed the cancerous nodules in her lungs had completely disappeared; this didn't mean there was no need for further chemotherapy, but it was proof the treatment had been working better than anyone expected. 

But her bloodwork came back showing that one of her kidney values, the BUN, was elevated.  The oncologist at WSU who's been directing Helen's cancer treatment told our primary care vet, Dr. Jennifer Rockwell, that renal insufficiency can be a side-effect of the chemo drug we had her on, but the elevated BUN could have been from a number of other things, too.  The oncologist wanted us to do an ultrasound of her kidneys to see if there was any kind of tumor there, as well as do a specific type of urinalysis to measure kidney function.

So today I took Helen with me to Missoula to see our internal medicine specialist there, Dr. Dave Bostwick, for an ultrasound and a urine sample.  Dave scanned her kidneys, spleen, liver and other organs and found no evidence of any tumor involvement.  Whew!  It will take several days for the urinalysis results to come back, but based on the ultrasound, we are very encouraged by her prognosis.  Honestly, when we first saw the nodules in her lungs last year, we didn't think she would have made it this far.  

Once we get the urinalysis back, Jennifer will consult with the oncologist again and map out the new course of treatment.  In the meantime, Helen had this to share:

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Please vote
for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day!  We're currently in third place, putting us on track to
win $3,000 for the animals.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state
postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

I've been working on our spring/summer newsletter, and the very last photo I needed was the one of Alayne and me for the "ranch letter" on page 2.  We always have an animal in the photo with us, and we generally pick one that will, well, cooperate!  So we thought Madison would be a great candidate for this photo shoot — she's an older, quiet girl, very calm and well-behaved.  I figured she'd sit nice and still while our awesome volunteer, Laura W. from Helena, took the photos this past Saturday.

Except … she didn't.  I don't know if it was because there were all these new and fascinating smells in the hay barn where we were taking the photos, or whether she just had ants in her pants — but Madison was one squirmy little thing.  She was in constant motion the entire time, and we could barely hold on to her.  So I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the outtakes from the photo session!  In the photo at top, Madison decided she'd rather give me a kiss than look at the camera.

Here it looks like I might be examining her lymph nodes, but I was actually trying to get her to turn her head back towards Laura: 

In this one I've completely lost control and Laura caught me in the process of saying, "Wait, she's going airborne on us…"

We also tried having her sit on the ground, but that didn't really work either:

But finally, somewhere among the 75 photos Laura graciously took, there had to be at least one that would work, right?  And there was … here's the one we will use in the newsletter:

It wasn't "the" photo I wanted, with her looking at the camera, but I'm old enough and wise enough to realize when it's time to declare victory in animal photography.  Madison was even more relieved than we were that the photo shoot was finally over!

—

Please vote
for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day!  We're currently in third place, putting us on track to
win $3,000 for the animals.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state
postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

We were eating lunch the other day when Alayne looked over and saw blind-and-deaf Spinner sleeping in an entirely new position — head down and off the chair.  Daisy was below her on the cot, apparently unaware of … or at least unconcerned about … Spinner's seemingly precarious position right behind and above her.

I don't know if the increased blood flow to her head in this position would improve the quality of her sleep, or make her dreams more vivid, but for whatever reason, she seemed perfectly comfortable like this and totally zonked out.  We have noticed that our blind-and-deaf animals sleep very, very well in any case — with no light or sounds to disturb them, who wouldn't?  But maybe Spinner found a way to make it even better.

And no, she didn't fall off later.  She woke up, changed positions, and went back to sleep.

—

Please vote
for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day!  We're currently in third place, putting us on track to
win $3,000 for the animals.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state
postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

I got this photo of little Bailey this past weekend, soaking up the sun along the front wall of our house, which faces south.  We have a big, wide gravel pad there in front of the house we call "the beach," and you can see how the sun has begun melting the snow, exposing more and more of the beach.  We've been enjoying some freakishly warm weather recently, and when I took that photo of Bailey, it was probably in the high-40s — and even warmer in the sun against the wall.  

Bailey is one of the original sun-worshippers here, and he loves being outside, no matter how hot it may be — as long as he has a little shade.  But he couldn't believe his luck this weekend, with bright sun and warm temperatures in the middle of winter.  So soak it up he did!

As I write this, about noon on Wednesday, we've already hit 50°(10° C).  We can't recall it ever being this warm this time of year.  While we — and all the animals — are enjoying it, the shrinking snowpack in the mountains is a major concern.  As of February 1st (the last reported data), snowpack in the Blackfoot River basin where we are located was only 68% of normal, the fourth lowest on record … and that was before we had these recent incredible warm spells.  That increases the risk this summer for forest fires, for fish in rivers and streams, and for irrigation.

Fortunately for Bailey, he doesn't have to worry about any of that stuff — all he has to do is enjoy the warm sunshine.  And now that the "shoreline" along the beach is exposed, we've put cots and beds out there.  But no beach umbrellas yet.

—

Please vote
for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day!  We're currently in third place, putting us on track to
win $3,000 for the animals.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state
postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

This is our newest arrival, Ella, who came from Shreveport on Friday evening.  She completes our four-pack from Louisiana for the month of February!  As you can see, she's missing the front leg we had to have amputated before she could travel to us.  Ella is a beautiful, sweet girl but is very scared — Rebecca with the rescue group in Shreveport had told us she seemed very fearful of people.  Sometimes she will let us get close to her, other times she runs from us; even when she lets us get close, she has her tail tucked all the way underneath her, while it quivers in a kind of I'm-not-sure-about-this" greeting.  She is not aggressive in any way — not with us, the other dogs, over food, etc.  She does great with the other dogs, in fact. 

But last night she wouldn't let us get near her, and it took about 15 minutes while we herded her around the outside of the house before Alayne could finally get close enough to take her by the collar.  She is not leash trained, either, so that adds to the challenge.  Yesterday she'd come up to the front and back doors of the house, but whenever we'd open the door, she'd take off.  It was obvious she wanted to be inside but didn't trust us yet.  This morning, after we let her out of the cottage, she wouldn't come anywhere near the house, and we finally had to herd her towards the back fence until we got her in a corner where we could put a leash on her.  

Ella clearly had bad experiences with humans, and we have a lot of ground to overcome. 

Once we got her back in the house this morning, she ended up lying down near Gabe … so I started scratching and petting him so she could watch Gabe melt into me.  He just loves being made over, and he presses his head into my chest and rubs and rubs against me.  The more Ella sees this kind of response, the more she will realize, "Hmm, maybe these human creatures aren't so bad after all."

The first two dogs Alayne and I adopted after we got married in the mid-1990's — Dolly and Dillon, who have since passed away — were both considered "unadoptable" by the shelter that had them because they had been abused as puppies and were absolutely terrified of people.  Compared to them, Ella is a social butterfly, and I suspect we will have her turned around before too long.

So although she's missing a leg, I'd have to say her real disability right now is in her head and it's called "distrust."  The cure for that is time, love and patience. 

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Widget is doing wonderfully — back to being the ranch boss!

—

Please vote
for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day!  We're currently in third place, putting us on track to
win $3,000 for the animals.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state
postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

Alayne got this photo of Widget last weekend snoozing soundly.  To show you just how resourceful some of these blind dogs are, Widget had grabbed the green fleece throw from the other chair with her mouth and dragged it over to the second chair.  Then she twirled it all around and bunched it up until she got it just right … and promptly disappeared underneath it.  If she had thumbs and/or could see, we'd be in real trouble.

Thank you to everyone who posted such wonderful thoughts and best wishes for Widget and her eye surgery.  I just brought Widget back from the vet clinic in Helena this evening and she is doing great.  She was woo-woo-wooing at the clinic when I arrived, and her little tail was a-bobbing when I held her.  She slept quietly in the truck the entire ride back, and is now happily eating her dinner in my office as I post this. 

—

Please vote
for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day!  We're currently in third place, putting us on track to
win $3,000 for the animals.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state
postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

This is a day that we have been dreading, and one we hoped would never come.  Long-time blog readers may remember that blind Widget had eye surgery back in 2006 because of painful glaucoma in her left eye, and that our vet, Dr. Brenda Culver, put an intraocular prosthesis inside the eyeball itself.  This kept her "natural" look and that irresistible Widget face.

Ever since, we have monitored her right eye for signs of discomfort.  In particular, we worried about the luxated lens in that eye, which had flopped into the back of the eye but so far had not caused any problems; what we always looked for was whether the lens had flipped forward and was laying against the cornea, which would cause discomfort.  But what happened instead is that the retina in that eye has now detached, causing bleeding and debris to float around inside the chamber.  The pressure in her right eye remains low, meaning glaucoma is not an issue.  Instead, the real culprit is uveitis, which can be very painful.  And it was clear she needed relief.  Given the nature of the problem, surgery was the only effective way to provide that relief.

Widget's experience is yet another example of why we so often say that blindness is only a symptom of disease, not the end stage.  Too many people think that once an animal is blind, there isn't anything else that can or needs to be done, nothing more to worry about — that a blind eye is, in effect, a "dead eye."  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  A blind eye may not be able to see, but it can feel just as much as an eye that can see — and there are few organs in our bodies more sensitive to pain than the eye.   

In these photos I took this morning Brenda is looking at Widget while vet tech Jenny holds her:

We have done both enucleations (removing the eye altogether) as well as the prosthetic implants on many blind animals — Briggs and Dusty were two who had the intraocular prosthetics inserted.  Both procedures ultimately remove the pain from the underlying problem in the blind eye.  But after going through both of these procedures so many times, we have carefully weighed the pros and cons of each approach. 

We have finally come to the conclusion that enucleation is a better alternative for the animal.  The procedure is simpler, the recovery is faster, and the degree of post-operative pain is significantly less than with the intraocular prosthetic.  Most important, the post-op pain ends much sooner.  There is also less risk of post-op complications; indeed, we almost lost Widget's prosthetic implant back in 2006, though quick intervention by Brenda saved the day.

So why do the prosthetic implants at all rather than enucleation?  Honestly, the only reason people opt for the implants is so their animals can keep their natural appearance — those faces we know and love so much.  And that is why we have dreaded this day, because we knew we wouldn't put Widget through the prosthetic implant procedure again — that if her right eye became painful and required surgery, we would opt for enucleation.  That meant she would never look the same … her adorable, bug-eyed face would be changed forever.  

But that's about us, not her.  She didn't care what she looked like.  What was best for her?  What would be the least painful, fastest recovery?

I was fighting back tears in the exam room this morning when Brenda was looking at Widget's eye.  I knew what we were going to decide.  

Widget's enucleation is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday.  Please keep our little girl in your thoughts.

—

Please vote
for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day!  We're currently in third place, putting us on track to
win $3,000 for the animals.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state
postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!