I walked into the cat house this morning to clean litter boxes and found this composition waiting for me. That's one-eyed Lulu on the left, three-legged Molly in the middle, and wobbly Mink on the right. This is a variation on the sardine theme I've posted about before. As usual, blind Herbie wasn't interested in snuggling with the other cats (not that there was any room left!), just in getting more attention from the nearest human:
I got this shot over the weekend of Bailey using his friend Dexter as a pillow. They were on a bed in the kitchen and the sun had just started coming through the living room windows, and the yummy warmth was causing Bailey to become drowsy. You can see how his eyes are beginning to close. But then Dexter realized I was taking photos so he suddenly sat up to give me quite the pose:
Although they are the best of friends, that doesn't mean Dexter — the world's fastest-eating Dachshund — won't try and help himself to Bailey's dinner. I caught the scamp on Saturday night with his head buried in Bailey's food bowl, having pushed his erstwhile "friend" aside. There was no remorse or sense of shame (who am I kidding?), just that annoyed Dachshund "dang-it-caught-again-before-I-finished-it!" look on his face.
I was putting the dogs back inside Widget's House today after their morning romp when I noticed blind Molly had a small iceball hanging off her chin. Even though she kept walking and prancing around the floor, it stayed right there on her chin … and she seemed oblivious to it. Now, she and her sister Priscilla are great snow dogs and seem to not mind cold weather at all. I presume that's because of the Poodle breed's history as a water dog and the nice coat that gave them.
But clearly she had been rooting around in the deep snow this morning with her head and face, which is one reason she has that tousled Tina Turner hairstyle on top. I thought about grabbing a brush and touching up her coiffure before taking the photo, but realized I'd probably lose the iceball before I got done. Molly and Priscilla are due for their regular trip to the groomers, but it's been so incredibly cold that we decided to let the "ranch Poodle" look go a bit longer than usual. We figured that this time of year, the girls would rather be warmer than prettier! On the other hand, maybe Molly thought the iceball was a nice winter fashion accessory.
Back in November I wrote a post about how a very inexpensive laundry basket, stuffed with fleece bedding, had suddenly become the place to sleep in the house … so much so that we went out and bought some extra baskets, just so we could have our original laundry basket back for its intended purpose. Well, even blind-and-deaf Spinner discovered this new style of bed and decided to try it out for herself. Although, as you can see, she didn't exactly fit in it all too well. I haven't seen her try it since, so maybe she decided she didn't have to be with the "in" crowd after all.
It was 0° (-18° C) this morning when I let the dogs out of Widget's House, and I took this photo shortly thereafter. The sun was finally coming up over the ridge to the east of us and beginning to light up Ovando Mountain behind us. At this point, we're all just waiting for the warmth of the rays to arrive — and when it's this cold, the sun can't get here fast enough. It's been snowing for two days and then it turned into a minor blizzard yesterday afternoon and continued through much of the night. That's why blind Mitch is sitting there off to the right, wondering why I haven't put him in his usual yard yet. Answer: Because the gate to his yard was snowbound and needed to be dug out. Since I was going to be putting them back inside pretty soon, I decided not to bother digging it out.
I had spent about 5 hours last Saturday on the tractor plowing us out from the last winter storm, so I wasn't too happy to realize I'd be spending a good part of today doing the same thing all over again.
For those of you down South "enjoying" your cold snap in the 20s and 30s, we'd love to have some of that weather back!
Speaking of weather, long-time blog readers know I'm something of a weather geek. Well, Santa brought me a new wireless weather station for Christmas, since my other one died in November after eight years of service. That was just as well: The old one from Lacrosse Technology was programmed to go "off-line" once the temperature dropped past 20 below zero (-29 C), an annoying limitation. The new one, from Davis Instruments, registers temperatures down to 40 below zero. (That's -40 C … isn't it odd that Fahrenheit and Celsius are the same when it gets to that temperature?).
Even better, my new weather station uploads our actual weather data to a custom Web page on a site run by Davis Instruments called Weatherlink.com. The Rolling Dog Ranch weather page is here: http://www.weatherlink.com/user/smithmarker/
So if you want to know what the weather is at the ranch at any time, you can bookmark that link.
Note there is no snow gauge, just a rain gauge listed on that page, and we're not exactly sure how that's going to work when it's plugged up with snow this time of year!
While we're still kinda sorta in the Christmas spirit of things, I thought I'd share a photo that one of our awesome volunteers, Laura B. of Helena, emailed me over the holidays. This is Rudy, a little wobbler who came to us way back in 2006 from a Utah rescue group. Rudy was here for just a few weeks before Laura fell in love with him, scooped him up, and took him home. (He wasn't even here long enough to get his own page on our Web site!) But he comes back to the ranch whenever Laura comes to volunteer, and he wobbles his way back into our hearts each and every time.
Happy New Year, everyone!
The day after Christmas, Richard and Julie S. from Olympia, Washington, emailed us these photos of Charlie, our once-blind Beagle they recently adopted. It looks almost as if Charlie is dreaming that all those presents under the tree are for him.
Richard wrote in the email, "We now have opened a new book called "The Adventures of Charlie" … the first chapter was "The journey to the boat dock in Olympia" (this is the picture with Julie in it). We walked up and down the boardwalk taking in all the sights. Charlie was so excited to see the water we had to hold him back from jumping in. Along the way Charlie had a few words with a few seagulls, although they didn't seem too happy in the conversation and flew off. By day's end Charlie was so tired that not even the sweet smell of cooking could arouse him from sleep. Will keep you up to date on any new adventures."
I'm going to take a "blog break" over the holidays and will resume posting the first week of January.
Before I go, here's a link to a story in the Missoulian today about the ranch winning the Shelter Challenge. It was written by a reporter at the Helena Independent Record, but for some reason isn't posted on that paper's site yet; it appeared in the Missoulian both in print and online this morning.
On behalf of all of us at the ranch, two-footed and four-footed alike — oops, blind Helen says "don't forget about us three-footed ones!" — we'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I've written before about how intrepid our blind animals are, especially the ones who were born blind and don't know anything different. Watching Widget enjoy a new snowfall first thing in the morning is always a treat, because she loves to zip around like a little snowplow. The fact that the snow is almost as deep as she is tall only seems to add to her delight. Alayne got these photos of Widget the other morning.
As long as she can keep her nose above the snow level, she'll go anywhere:
Sometimes she just loves to see how fast she can go through it:
Other times she likes to bury her face in the fluffy stuff:
Only to come up for air looking like this:
We did find Widget packing her bags this afternoon. For some reason she thought we were going to use the $20,000 from the Shelter Challenge to send her on a round-the-world cruise on the Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2. We had to break the news to her that we were going to use the $20,000 for medical expenses, not for her to go on a 108-day luxury cruise to distant ports of call. She took it well.
Yes, it's official — the ranch won the Shelter Challenge Grand Prize and will get $20,000 for the animals! This is truly one of the most humbling things that has ever happened to us. Wow — what a phenomenal Christmas present! For a small sanctuary in a remote part of Montana to win out over thousands of other shelters and rescue groups around the United States is just incredible. It blows us away. Thank you!
It is a testament to all of you who faithfully voted daily for months on end to make this happen. Alayne and I were just astonished at the sheer number of people who told us they were voting for the ranch every day and had enlisted their family, their friends and their colleagues at work to vote, too. And many of these were folks we had never heard from before — but they were voting for the ranch and doing as much as they could to get others to vote for us, too. Not only here in the United States, but in Canada, New Zealand, Italy, South Africa and in other countries around the world. Just knowing that so many people were not only thinking about us but were doing something every single day to help us win that Grand Prize — well, that is the humbling part.
It is also a reflection of how much our disabled animals can inspire — with their zest for life, their strength in overcoming adversity, and their playful, silly antics that keep us laughing. When we started the sanctuary nearly 10 years ago, we never realized just how much these animals and their stories would resonate with people. We had no idea. But these remarkable animals are, of course, why so many of you were voting in this contest — so they could benefit. They touched you in some way, and you have touched them.
We are more grateful to you — to every single one of you — than you can possibly imagine. Thank you … thank you … thank you!!!
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 