Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Wendy M., who adopted blind Stoney the Lab and blind-and-deaf Baron from us back in 2008, just sent me this photo of her two pups dressed up in their Halloween costumes. Stoney is going as a ghost and Baron as a Chippendale. Very cute!

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One of our long-time blog readers sent us the link to this piece by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods, whose work we have posted on the blog before here and here.

Here's the intro to the Live Science article:

There is real chemistry between dogs and their owners, new research over the last few years and data from Dognition show. From a simple kiss to a long, loving gaze, everyday interactions with dogs are responsible for changing people's biochemistry for the better.

We're happy to report that not only is Widget doing very well with her chemotherapy, the oncologist confirmed for us last week that Widget's lymphoma is probably in remission — and if it's not, "it's pretty darn close."  We had noticed even after Widget's first week of treatment how much her lymph nodes had shrunk. That first week, ironically, turned out to be the only really rough week she had with the treatment. Once we got through it, and adjusted/added to her gastrointestinal meds, the second week was a lot better, and she's been cruising ever since. In fact, she no longer even needs most of her GI meds.

She's still fussy about what she wants to eat. Fortunately, however, there is one food she will always eat, and that's our cooked ground goat. She will turn her nose up at freshly cooked ground beef, but offer her the goat, and she chomps away. So while the rest of the menu is constantly evolving depending on her whim-of-the-day, the goat is something she will never pass by.

Sleep-eat-sleep-potty-sleep-eat-sleep. It's a grueling schedule. Meanwhile:

By the way, notice how all the dog beds and blankets we use to carefully cover up the once-white Ikea chair cushions are rearranged for someone's maximum comfort?

A couple of weeks ago I took our blind and deaf dog Spinner to our veterinary ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, for surgery on an eyelid tumor. The growth was on the edge of the eyelid and had begun rubbing on her eyeball. On Tuesday of this week it was time to take Spinner back for a re-check exam and to have the sutures removed, which is what Dr. Hoy is doing in the photo above. Her vet tech Patty is holding Spinner still, which wasn't easy — Spinner was one nervous girl, and panting so hard it made suture removal a bit challenging.

But the growth was benign, fortunately, and the surgery site healed quite nicely. With sutures successfully removed, Spinner was relieved to get back in the van for the trip home. In all the years we've had her — she first came in 2005 — she's rarely ever been sick or had to make a trip to the vet clinic, so she wasn't thrilled with this experience. Her view was, "Get me outta here."

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$1,000 For The Animals From The Shelter Challenge!

These are more photos that I took last Saturday while Alayne was picking apples next to one of the goat paddocks. She had been handing out a few apples to the goats, who inevitably would drop a couple of them. Aaron, our Maremma livestock guardian dog, picked one up and the game was on. (Click on photos for larger images.) In the photo above, he's got the apple in his mouth and Maggie the puppy is trying to figure out how to snatch it from him.

As in:

No luck, but she keeps trying:

Joshua, Maggie's brother, sees the game going on and leaves Gina behind to join in the fun:

So now the big lug has two puppies after him:

But after a few minutes of this, the apple fell out of favor and the trio retreated to the shade of the trailer:

One of our blog readers asked whether the dogs have ever encountered any predators and saved the goats. Good question. We first realized we really needed livestock guardian dogs when we lost a kid goat one day back in 2011, as the small herd was grazing around the pond right below the house. A predator — most likely a coyote — grabbed him right next to the electric fence and dragged him off into the woods. We never saw it or heard anything, but the kid was missing when we went to bring the herd in at the end of the day. We couldn't find him anywhere (and kids don't wander off from their moms and the rest of the herd).  We eventually discovered his skull the following year.

Livestock guardian dog experts say there's only one true way to tell whether your dogs are successfully guarding or not: Have you lost any livestock? If not, they're doing their job. If you have losses, the dogs are not being effective, for whatever reason. We haven't lost any goats since getting the dogs. Their very presence is usually enough to deter predators and keep them moving on to easier opportunities. 

During our first summer here, in 2010, we had coyotes and "coy-dogs" — feral coyote/dog crosses — snatch our chickens in broad daylight and in full view of us, right around the barnyard. They'd just sneak in from the edge of the woods, dart out to grab a chicken, and run back to the woods. They were so brazen that one day Alayne was so close she chased a coyote as it ran off with a chicken in its mouth. Once Gina arrived in the fall of 2011, we haven't lost a single chicken … even though the dogs aren't specifically out guarding them. 

I don't know how many folks saw this article in the New York Times this past weekend, but I thought it was an interesting piece and worth sharing on the blog. 

The photo they picked as artwork for the story is such a sad and haunting image … and that poor dog is standing right on the edge of the road, with a car coming. Egads.

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