Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Last Friday was the blind Poodle sisters' first-year anniversary since coming to the ranch, and I took Molly and Priscilla to the groomers in Missoula for their usual make-over from what we call "Montana ranch Poodle" to "Westminster diva."  (In between there's a style we call their "Tina Turner look.")  They actually needed to be groomed a few weeks ago, but it had been so cold and snowy that we decided to hold off.  Thus their anniversary, on a beautiful, sunny spring day, seemed like a perfect time to do it.

While they were being groomed — it takes four hours! — I ran errands in Missoula.  Alayne took this photo of me with the girls after we got back on Friday afternoon.  Following the photo session, I turned them loose in the Widget's House yard, and the other dogs came running out to smell the "new arrivals."  Since almost all of the dogs there are blind, they rely a lot on their noses to tell them what's going on, and these girls do smell very fragrant after they come back from the groomer.  Less ranch, more perfume, you might say.

So the other dogs follow the girls all over the yard, sniffing at them, trying to figure out … "Is that you, Molly?  You smell so … different!"

I got this photo of blind Moose, our new arrival, at the breakfast table this morning.  This big fellow has turned out to be a perfect gentleman with impeccable house manners — that flickering tongue notwithstanding.  In fact, he is one of just a handful of dogs who are granted "sleep-over" privileges and allowed to sleep in our house at night.  Moose makes number 6.  I can't think of a dog who instantly earned sleep-over privileges in their very first week with us, but that's the kind of guy he is.  He's so quiet he hasn't even barked yet!  The only noise he makes is the thumping of his huge tail every time we talk to him or walk by him. 

And he is incredibly gentle with the small dogs … too much of a push-over, in fact.  A couple of nights ago he followed Alayne into Birdie's Cottage as she was putting the dogs up in their crates and handing out the bedtime cookies when Widget — the only one in that cottage who doesn't go in a crate — sensed some competition for her cookie and snarled at Moose.  The poor guy had shown absolutely zero interest in Widget's cookie but there she was, teeth bared and snarling at him ("Widget!  Not a pretty face!").  Moose slinked away and cowered by the wall, head down, with a sad, apologetic look on his face that seemed to say, "Oh, jeez, I'm so terribly sorry — I didn't mean to upset you!"  It was really rather pathetic, this 99-pound dog cowed by a 20-lb, eight-inch high Widget.  Alayne escorted him safely out of the cottage.

But that shows you just how sweet-natured and easy-going he is.  Our original plan was to move him over to Widget's House, our main dog building where the other "big dogs" are, but he's not going anywhere.  He's going to be staying right here.  Next to the table.

We've often said that disabled animals are inspirational, and Frankie — a Dachshund who became paralyzed after a spinal injury — is certainly proof of that.  Frankie's spirit and tenacity in overcoming her disability inspired her Mom, Barbara Techel, to write a children's book, "Frankie the Walk 'N Roll Dog."

As Barbara describes it, "Teaching children, as well as
adults, that we can overcome challenges has become a passionate
mission of mine. With Frankie by my side, I find blissful joy in
sharing her story."

Published in 2008, Frankie's book has won several awards and honors, and is helping people see disabled animals in a new light.

For the month of April, Barbara is kindly donating a portion of the book sales to the ranch to help the disabled animals here. 

You can read more about Frankie, as well as order the book, at Barbara's wonderful Web site Joyful Paws.

Thank you, Frankie and Barbara!

I always tell blind Widget her nose reminds me of a black olive.  Alayne saw her sleeping like this, that little nose pressing down the edge of the bed, and got the photo.  And there it is … my black olive.

I know I've mentioned this before, but for any new-to-the-blog folks, this is normal for how her eyes look when she's sleeping.  Her eyes are comfortable, but she doesn't always close them when sleeping and her third eyelid pops up part way.  This has to do with the shape and size of her eyeballs.

(The big wad of brown paper in the background came from a box someone had shipped us, and we're using it for fire starter in the wood stove.)

Here's another view of my sleeping black olive:

She had opened her eyes after the repeated clicking of the shutter woke her up.  I know, it's rude to wake a sleeping olive beauty!

Alayne got this shot of little Dexter the other evening after feeding the dogs.  Every time Dexter has finished eating, he licks his bowl clean until it's spotless.  Actually, until the final spot of food ends up on the tip of his nose.  Then he saunters into the kitchen and stares up at Alayne like this, imploring her for more food.  We don't know what it is about the physics of the round food bowl and the pointy Dachshund nose, but somehow he always gets a dab of food on the end of his nose.  He seems either unaware of it, or — more likely — he thinks it sends a powerful message to Alayne about what he's looking for.

A couple of days ago Alayne called me from our welcome center and said, "Get your camera, you need to see Rocky and Joshua on the backhoe."  Always in search of a good blog photo, I grabbed the camera off the desk and dashed outside.  It was snowing lightly with big, wet flakes, but as I looked over to the vehicle shed I could see the two barn cats sitting side-by-side on the operator's seat of the backhoe.  (It's fastened to the back of the tractor and runs from the rear PTO, or power take-off.)

We should probably stop calling Rocky and Joshua "barn cats" because they have vacated Beauty's Barn, their former home, and moved into the vehicle shed.  We don't know why they did, but they seem very happy in their new residence.  At 96 feet long and 32 feet deep (29 m x 10 m), it's bigger than most barns anyway, it has a nice, open view to the south, and it has some really cool toys for a cat to play with!

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Every morning after I let the dogs out of Widget's House, I stand by with pooper scooper equipment in hand to follow them around while they do their business.  (With snow on the ground, if you don't scoop right away, the poop can disappear on you really fast.  I'm thinking about writing a book called "Poop Scooping in Northern Climates:  Everything You Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask.")  Blind Cedar, our beautiful Lab/Husky mix, loves to track me as I make my way around the nearly one-acre yard hunting for soon-to-be buried treasures.

Cedar has started losing his hearing in recent months, and what sounds he can detect often confuse him — it's like he can't get a directional "fix" on where the sound is coming from — so he often spins off in a different direction.  Consequently he is now using his nose mostly to stay on my trail.  Once he finds me, he'll come up to get some loving, then wander off again for a while.  Pretty soon he seems to start thinking, "Hmm, where did he go?" and he'll begin sniffing out my trail.  (When you wear muddy, manure-covered barn boots, it's really not that hard to pick up the trail!)

I took that photo of Cedar above this morning while I was making my rounds and he was closing in on me.  It looks like he's three-legged, but he's not, as you can see from this shot I took a few minutes later from the porch of Widget's House:

That's blind Brody in the background, wondering what's going on at the porch.

Cedar used to hate having his photo taken, and he would always act a little weird — ears down, like he's spooked — when he heard the shutter click.  Now that he's mostly deaf, he can't hear me take his photo any longer, which is why I was able to get these shots, all with ears up!  Here's the last one I took, after I had finished scooping and he decided to sit and meditate for a while:

Handsome boy!

This sweet blind Lab arrived at the ranch yesterday.  I drove over to our vet clinic in Helena to pick him up.  The police department in Conrad, Montana — a small town on the other side of the Rockies, northeast of us — had found him wandering on Interstate 15 back in February.  Yes, someone had abandoned a blind dog near an interstate highway in February in Montana.  Did they just turn him loose at a rest area and drive off?  No one knows. 

The Conrad police department took him to their local animal shelter and kept him there while they tried to find his owner and then, eventually, someone to adopt him.  They ran advertisements and radio spots but they never received an inquiry or a report that anyone was looking for him.  While they had him in the kennel, the police officers would take him with them during the night to walk the schools and occasionally check businesses on slow nights to get him exercise.  After a month with no luck finding his owner or an adopter, the Conrad Police Chief emailed me and asked if we could take him.  We agreed, and the police chief found someone to drive the dog to Helena for us a week ago. 

Dr. Jennifer Rockwell at our clinic, Montana Veterinary Specialists & General Care, called after his initial health exam to say they had named him Moose because of his massive frame, affable personality and lumbering nature.  Jennifer said he tipped the scales at 99 pounds and yet isn't fat — he just has really big bones and a huge head.  His legs are fairly short, too, but he makes up for it in sheer bulk!

When I saw him for the first time yesterday at the clinic, I realized Moose was a perfect name for this guy. 

It turns out he is blind from progressive retinal atrophy, or PRA.  At the moment his eyes remain comfortable and he doesn't have any secondary eye issues.  We also had him neutered, dewormed and vaccinated.  His blood work was perfectly normal.

Moose is a gentle, easy-going fellow who gets along with everyone.  He's very sweet with the small dogs in particular.  Because we could tell right away how well he would do being introduced to everyone, we brought him into the house with us an hour or so after he arrived.  He walked through the rooms for a few minutes, checked things out, nosed a few of the dogs, and then found a bed in the living room and laid down on it.  That was that.  He was home.

Moose has been in the house with us all through today as well, and it's as if he's lived here his entire life. 

I took the photo of Moose with Alayne this afternoon.  He looks a bit sad but that's just his face — he sort of has a natural melancholy expression.  He's actually a happy boy, just very mellow.  Yesterday evening we found that every time we'd walk by his bed, he'd gently thump his tail on the floor to greet us.  Whenever he realizes we're talking to him, he starts wagging his tail.  And when he realizes Alayne is talking to him, he really, really wags his tail!  It's clear that a woman had been his main companion because he just lights up whenever Alayne dotes on him.  He definitely responds to me, too, but we can tell it's a different level of emotion with Alayne.

After being abandoned to fend for himself in a brutal winter, this blind boy is now safe and sound with us.  Thanks to the Conrad Police Department, who did everything they could to help him.  And thanks to all of you who support the ranch with your gifts, we could say "yes" to a disabled dog like Moose. 

This is what we're doing right now to contain our fence-jumper, Travis — he's spending most of the day in the "wobbler den" on the front porch of Widget's House.  When we let him out in the morning, he gets to race around the yards while we're over there scooping poop and doing laundry and washing the dog dishes.  That way we can keep an eye on the rascal.  Then we put him up in the pen when we leave.  We turn him loose for another hour or two in the afternoon when we head back for the evening chores.  And he gets one more chance to run his steeplechase course when we let him out again for the final "pit stop" before bedtime.

Smokey, our little wobbler, loves being outside in the snow during the day — it's soft enough that tumbling over in this stuff is kind of like landing on a pillow.  (Smokey's brother Charlie is no longer with us.  Sadly, we had to euthanize him last fall because of a progressive nervous system disorder that was unrelated to his cerebellar hypoplasia.)  So while Smokey wobbles around in the snow, Travis gets to stay in the wobbler den.  He doesn't think it's fair but then, as we tell him, who said life was fair?

We need the snow to melt about, oh, another foot before we can let this scamp have free rein again. 

A mild spring snowstorm yesterday morning turned into a roaring blizzard in the afternoon and lasted until about 8 p.m.  After sustained winds as high as 25 mph (40 kph) coming from due north, we were left with snowdrifts piled up around the ranch in new and interesting places.  When the winds suddenly quit yesterday evening, I headed down the drive towards Widget's House to let the dogs out and found myself knee-deep in snow.  I decided not to go back to get the snowshoes and continued trudging the 100 yards towards the Widget's House gate, which I then had to dig open using the grain shovel we leave there for this purpose.  By the time I finally got to the building, I had some really full bladders waiting for me and some dogs who were wondering, "What on earth took you so long?"

Our typical snowstorms come from the northwest or northeast, and because our main drive runs east-west, the wind generally blows the snow down the drive, leaving it mostly passable.  But with a straight north wind, our drive ended up as little more than a trench buried in snow.  Because the air temperature was still relatively warm — just about freezing — the snow was wet and heavy.  (We call it "Cascade concrete," like the snow we used to see when we lived in Washington state.)

Thus I knew last night how I would start off today:  on the tractor, using the snowblower to open up the drive.  Right after breakfast, I fired up the tractor and headed down the drive, chewing my way through the snow towards the Widget's House gate.  (Hey, I didn't want to have to walk through all that again!)  Alayne came out with the camera to get this shot of the arc of snow coming out of the machine.  By this point I had already made one pass down the drive and was on my way back.

More snow in the forecast for tomorrow and tomorrow night.  Sigh.

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The Travis "confinement solution" will now appear in the next blog post!