One Saturday, One Dog, One Horse

On Saturday morning I left before dawn with the horse trailer. It was dark, 14 degrees above zero, and an impenetrable freezing fog kept visibility to 20 yards.  I was headed to Spokane, Washington, to get a blind horse that a rescue group had just saved from slaughter.  On the way I stopped in Missoula to pick up Liz S., a friend of the sanctuary and wonderful volunteer.  Liz had kindly offered to assist on the trip and help navigate.  (Look, here's a guy who doesn't mind help with directions!)

As Liz and I were winding our way across Montana and Idaho towards Washington, back at the ranch Alayne was greeting Timmy, a disabled black Lab who had been rescued by a Denver vet hospital.  Peggy B. and Kelly T. had driven Timmy up from Colorado to the sanctuary.  We'd been told that Timmy had cerebellar hypoplasia, like our dog Allie.  It turns out that Timmy has virtually none of the characteristics Allie has.  In fact, he looks and acts very much like Birdie, our black Lab who has a form of muscular dystrophy.   

Unfortunately, Timmy is not anywhere as mobile as Allie or Birdie.  He is much closer to being a paralyzed dog than we expected him to be.  It's not clear to us what his underlying medical condition is, so we will be taking Timmy to our internal medicine specialist for a definitive diagnosis.  Whatever his problem, Timmy is a sweet, affectionate, talkative boy who has already won our hearts.  I took the photo of Timmy this morning in our living room.

Meanwhile, Liz and I arrived in Spokane to meet Heidi A. from Columbia Basin Equine Rescue.  We were actually picking up two horses from Heidi -- the blind one we had agreed to take, and another slaughter-bound horse that a lady in Frenchtown, Montana, had adopted from Heidi's group.  We had offered to transport the other horse back to Montana since Frenchtown was right on our way. 

The photo shows Liz (on the left) and Heidi, just after we loaded the two horses in our trailer.  The blind horse, which they named Keller, is behind Liz, and that's Cashew on the right.

We delivered Cashew to her new home in Frenchtown -- back in freezing fog in the dark! -- and then I dropped Liz off at her home in Missoula.

I drove the 60 miles east on Highway 200 back to Ovando, and just as I turned off the highway I noted the outside temperature on the truck's thermometer:  22 degrees.  As I drove out across our valley towards the ranch, the temperature kept dropping ...19, 18, 15... and by the time I got to our gate, it was 11 degrees.  That was an 11 degree drop in the space of 3 miles!  (This was no fluke:  Last Thursday night coming back from Missoula, the temperature was 25 degrees at the highway and 12 degrees at the ranch.)

But I digress.

Alayne came out to help me unload blind Keller and get her into the barn.  This old blind mare has the thickest hair coat we've seen on a horse, and along with a bit of a pot belly, we're now thinking she may have Cushing's Disease.  She also has trouble eating, and we could hear loud squeaking noises coming from her mouth when she chewed.  (Ouch!)  Her hind feet seem to be bothering her, too.  Needless to say, we're calling our equine vet first thing Monday morning. 

This blind mare wasn't in the stall for 15 minutes before Alayne gave her a new name:  Smokey.  It was clear she wasn't used to being in a stall -- we bet she'd never had this kind of comfort before in her life -- but she trusted us that everything was going to be okay.  We took the photo of her last night, soon after we turned her into her stall.  You can see she was already enjoying a late dinner!

Comments

[Leslie]

I know I speak for many when I say THANK YOU for your kind hearts and willingness to help animals in need! I myself met Smokey when she was located at a feedlot near Yakima. She was thin, dirty and scared...a truely sad sight. I knew that the good people at CBER would not let her get on "the truck", but I did not imagined such a wonderful ending (or should I say new begining) for her. I look forward to seeing her story, and hearing updates on this sweet lady! Thank you once again...

[Roz]

Welcome Timmy and Smokey. So glad you made it to the ranch. Thanks to the volunteers.