Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary

After The Bath, A Treat

Alayne and I gave blind Brynn, now 5 months old, a bath this afternoon ... well, more like a shower with a hose.  Brynn has an ectopic ureter, which means one kidney is sending urine not to her bladder but instead to her uterus.  (Ectopic ureters can actually end up taking urine to the strangest places, even to the intestines.)  As a result, she leaks urine constantly, and it dribbles down her backside and onto her rear legs. 

In warmer months this wasn't too much of a problem, but now that winter is here (at least here in Montana!), keeping her clean is difficult.  Fortunately we have hot and cold running water at Beauty's Barn, so we could hose her down outside with very warm water, then take her into the heated medical stall to scrub down her hindquarters.  We finished with a warm water rinse outside, then took her back into the medical stall and left her there to dry. 

I took this photo right after we got done.  Brynn was not very happy with our efforts and threw quite the temper tantrum.  Ordinarily she is very placid and calm and sweet, but she did not want us messing with her backside today, and she let us know it in no uncertain terms!  In any case, we got through it, and Alayne was giving her some grain as a post-bath treat.

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What? Wait For Christmas?!?

The wonderful folks at West Paw Design in Bozeman, Montana -- who make our favorite dog beds among other great pet products -- kindly sent us a huge box of donated goodies yesterday.  Blind Goldie with the incredible nose (see Monday's post) went absolutely crazy because she KNEW there were soft toys with squeakers inside that box!  She kept trying to rip the box open, using her teeth and her paws, whining and barking with anticipation.  We couldn't leave her unsupervised because we knew she'd shred the box and have everything scattered all over the house.  (Been there, done that.)

I took the photo today after we had opened the box.  That's Goldie eyeing (well, really "nosing") the contents ... she can hardly believe how many things are in there.  And in the background is Bailey, who's waiting for Goldie to get into the box and start dishing out the goodies onto the floor.  He's seen this routine before. 

We told Goldie we were going to wait until Christmas -- oh no! -- to hand out the presents, but we did give her as a consolation prize the red bone toy you see in the photo.  She had the squeaker ripped out in a matter of minutes and was back looking for another toy. 

Sigh.

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Don't Mind Me While I Groom You

Somewhere along the way in the past few months, blind Callie the Dachshund decided she'd be a personal groomer for the other dogs.  She loves to give their backs a careful going-over, licking them clean.  Oddly, she ONLY does backs ... nothing else, please.  And she focuses only on the big dogs, for some reason, like Helen our blind 105-lb Rottweiler or Kenai our blind Lab.

I took this photo yesterday afternoon when I saw Callie busily grooming Kenai again in our dining room.  (Well, it's more 'dog room' than 'dining room,' as you can see.)  Callie gets very intense and focused on this, and she will groom away as long as the other dog lies still.

In the background is Widget, sleeping as usual.  (Have you ever seen an "action" shot of Widget?)  Underneath the cot is all the stuffing from a soft toy that Kenai shredded yesterday morning while lying on that same cot.  (It's odd what you notice in your own house AFTER you take a photo!)

The bedding piled on top of the Rubbermaid tub is for Bailey the miniature Dachshund.  Because he has some incontinence "issues," we have to keep fresh bedding on hand to change out a couple of times a day.

(An aside:  I just ran the blog spellchecker and it helpfully suggested replacing "Rottweiler" with "Rototiller."  Hmm.)

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There Must Be Food In Here Somewhere

Blind Goldie, who has one of the best noses in the nose business, convinced herself this weekend there was still food in the stack of empty dog dishes.  She kept jumping up on the green Rubbermaid tub (where we store the dry dog food) so she could push the dishes around, hoping (I think) to knock them over and scatter the kibble all over the floor. 

At first I thought she was imagining things, because there was no food in the top dishes.  I said, "Goldie, what are you up to?  There's nothing there!"  But because she wouldn't give up -- even after I went to get the camera and take this photo -- I finally went over to check the dishes.  Sure enough, the fourth dish down still had kibble left in it.

Her nose is really phenomenal, and she rarely ever "misses" when her nose tells her something she wants is there.  She can get obsessive/compulsive about this, and we've resorted to "hiding" (we like to think) toys, treats and other objects on top of bookshelves, inside closets, and in cabinets.  She'll just stand there, outside a closet door, and bark and bark until we either give in (hmm) or until we give up and take the desired object and put it in one of the other buildings. 

We've read that the typical dog has about 220 million smell receptors in its nose, compared to about 5 million receptors in a person.  We figure Goldie must have twice the normal number for a dog!

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We're In Bark Magazine!

The November/ December issue of Bark Magazine has just come out with a wonderful feature story on the sanctuary. In the magazine's preview of the article, they described it as "A visit to the amazing Rolling Dog Ranch -- a sanctuary for disabled animals in Big Sky country -- get inspired!"

We actually haven't seen it yet (!), but people who have tell us it's a six-page article illustrated with lots of photos, some of them full-page.  I'm heading into Missoula tomorrow and will get a copy of the magazine then.

You can find Bark at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, Chapters (in Canada), Wild Oats, and Whole Foods, among other retail outlets. Bark does not post their articles online so purchasing a copy of the magazine is the only way to read the story.

To find other retailers near you who carry Bark, click here.

Surveying His Domain

I was out scooping poop in the Widget's House dog paddocks this morning when I looked over and saw Travis -- a.k.a. "Perch" -- surveying his domain from on top the big wooden reel.  The reel is left over from last year's construction project, building Beauty's Barn, when we had to lay in more power cable.  We moved the reel into the paddock to give the dogs something to climb up on.  As it turns out, Travis is the only dog who takes advantage of this. 

A few weeks ago I posted a photo of Travis perched rather precariously on top of an igloo dog house.  He loves heights, so if there's something to climb, he's all over it.  (I'm just glad we don't have any trees in that paddock!)

If it looks wet in the photo, it sure was.  The "Pineapple Express" that's hammered Washington state with flooding has been dumping lots of rain on western Montana, too, along with warm temperatures.  It's been raining for days, and as you can see from the photo, our snow is now long gone.  Today we were in the high 50's ... a long way from the 10 below zero we had just a week ago today, on Halloween!

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I'll Just ... Bury My Face

I walked out into the living room tonight and saw Bailey the miniature Dachshund asleep with his face buried inside his stuffed bear.  Well, it once WAS a stuffed bear -- and a big one at that, twice Bailey's size -- but over the past several months he's happily ripped out all the stuffing.  ("I'll show this pesky bear who's boss!") 

He still loves this thing, even though it's only a shadow (a rug?) of its former self, so we continue to launder it and give it back to him to beat up some more.  Or sleep in.  Whatever.  He'll drag it all over the living room floor, just to keep it near him.

Anyone with Dachshunds will tell you they love to burrow under things.  Bailey does, too, but he's also content sometimes to hide just a part of his body.  So tonight simply burying his face met the "burrow quotient" for the evening.

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Willie and Spirit Come Home From The Hospital

One of our wonderful volunteers, Laura B. from Helena, brought Willie the blind Beagle and Spirit the paralyzed Yorkie back to the ranch from the vet clinic this weekend.  I took this photo tonight of Willie in our living room, enjoying the wood stove.  And making yet another appearance, over on the right is the sleeping geisha herself, Widget. 

Willie, who arrived recently from a Beagle rescue group in Atlanta, had a bad case of heartworms that needed treatment.  Before we could begin the treatment we needed to assess his heart function, where the heartworms were lodged in his heart, and whether he had any related pulmonary issues because of the compromised heart.  He also was dripping blood from his urinary tract, and it hadn't responded to antibiotics.

All this meant chest X-rays, an echocardiogram of his heart, a heartworm test, urinalysis, a blood panel, and an ultrasound of his urinary tract and prostate gland.  Oh yes, and the heartworm treatment itself.  Total cost:  $511.44.

The good news is that Willie's heart was in good shape and he's already had his heartworm treatment.  Our vets kept him at the clinic to monitor because the treatment can be risky, but he came through just fine.  The blood in his urine is a prostate issue related to the fact that he isn't neutered yet.  We have to get him clear of heartworms before he can go under anesthesia for neutering, so one thing at a time!

Spirit's cornea in her left eye had an ulcer that is now healing successfully, thanks to surgery last week to speed the corneal healing process.  However, it turns out the lens in that eye is partially detached.  We won't know for another 10 days to 2 weeks whether it will become completely detached or remain like it is.  So we're not out of the woods yet, but Spirit was glad to be home after a long stay in the hospital.  Her bill came to $196.86.

This gives you a good example of why we've spent more than $30,000 so far in vet bills this year, huh?  Willie didn't seem too concerned about the cost, he just wanted to make sure I kept adding logs to the fire. 

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We Lost Little Ricky Today

I had to take little old Ricky, who came to us this past June, to the vet today to be put to sleep.  I took this photo of Alayne holding Ricky in happier days.  Already ancient when he arrived, stone deaf and with no teeth, we knew Ricky wouldn't be with us for that long.  But the speed with which he deterioriated in the past couple of months was still rather astonishing.

Unfortunately, his mind went first, with what our vet Brenda Culver had called "old dog cognitive dysfunction syndrome," or doggie Alzheimer's.  Then his body began shutting down, and it became impossible to keep weight on him as his kidneys began failing.  Ricky's tiny frame got thinner and thinner.

Finally, this week we realized the time had come to let him go.  He was "existing" but not living, not enjoying life any longer.  This little guy, who we had called a "kissin' fool" because he always liked to lick us whenever we picked him up, no longer even did that in the past week.  Indeed, today as I picked him up off the back seat of the truck to carry him into the clinic, I held him next to my face to see if I could get one last kiss ... but it didn't happen.  He didn't even seem to realize I was there, bless his little heart.  A few minutes later he was gone, peacefully.