Rolling Dog Farm

Waiting For Scout

I wasn't going to write about this.  Especially for a start-of-the-week blog post. 

We've had too many losses this year, and I know quite a few of our regular readers were getting emotional fatigue in recent months from logging on to the blog and having to reach for the Kleenex box too many times.

But I decided last night this was a story that needed to be told.  It's not really about the one we lost -- our old blind horse Scout -- but about the buddy he left behind, our old mule Roy.  I wrote last October how these two senior gentlemen had become the best of friends.

For the past two weeks we'd been battling a severe case of laminitis with Scout.  Laminitis can be caused by any number of "triggers."  Our equine vet and surgeon, Dr. Erin Taylor, had been out here to treat him, and we thought we had turned the corner.  But Saturday morning Scout could barely move.  He was trying to shift as much of his weight from his front hooves to his back hooves, so when he walked, he looked like he was going to fall over backwards.  It was the most awkward thing I'd seen in a horse.  It was painful to watch.

I called Erin, who had me give Scout a large dose of acepromazine and additional anti-inflammatories, and then asked me to bring him in to Missoula and she'd meet me at the clinic.  We X-rayed his front hooves, and as she slid the images onto the lightboard, she said, "This is not good."  I could immediately tell what had happened.  And I knew what it meant.  In both feet the coffin bone -- also called the pedal bone or P3, the bottom bone in the leg that sits inside the hoof -- had separated from the hoof wall.  In his left foot the coffin bone was pointed almost straight down, and was only a few millimeters from coming through the sole of his foot.  Scout had to be in agony.

I leaned back against the wall, tears welling up.  Erin told me about our options. One was to try and alleviate his pain and discomfort to the extent that was even possible, knowing we were only buying some time.  As Erin put it, "At the cost of what suffering?"  Or we could let him go.  There was nothing we could do to reverse the rotation of the coffin bone.  I called Alayne to tell her what we had found, and we agreed the only humane thing was to let him go.  So Erin and I walked Scout slowly out to a field behind the clinic.  As I put my arms around this old horse's neck and cried, Erin pulled up fresh green grass with her hands from the field and fed it to Scout.  He munched quietly for several minutes, enjoying every bit of it.

Finally, Erin injected the first syringe of the euthanasia drug into a catheter in his neck, and then I handed her the second syringe.  As she finished injecting the remaining dose, Scout stood there for a few seconds, wobbled back and forth, and then collapsed to the ground.

When I had left the ranch that morning with Scout, we had turned his friend Roy loose, letting him wander at will.  Roy has been eager to get out and graze, and he always loves to explore, so we figured he'd be content to spend the warm, sunny spring day wandering the ranch.  (Roy can see.)  But he never ventured from the area around Beauty's Barn, where he and Scout lived.

As I drove back in with the horse trailer Saturday afternoon, Alayne -- who was at Beauty's Barn doing chores -- told me that Roy watched me drive past the barn and continue on to the house.  He hee-hawed as I went by, thinking Scout was on board and coming back.  Roy was still staring at the trailer as I got out of the truck and walked inside the house.  Thinking that somehow he had missed me unloading Scout, Roy walked into Beauty's Barn to look for his friend.  But Scout wasn't there. 

For the rest of the afternoon and evening, Roy stood in the barn aisle, right next to Scout's stall, waiting.  It broke our hearts to watch him like this.  He would disappear out the south door of the barn, nibble on some grass or the hay stacked outside, then come back in and stand vigil next to the stall.

I put the dogs up at Widget's House last night at 9 p.m. and walked over to Beauty's Barn, and I could see Roy's silhouette in the darkened barn aisle.  He was still there.  I walked into the barn and hugged this old mule.  Judging from the piles of poop in the aisle, I could tell he had rarely left that spot.

That's when I realized I wanted to tell this story.  Too many people don't think of equines this way ... as sensitive, thinking, emotional animals who form intense bonds with one another.  But they do get attached, and they definitely feel the loss when their buddy disappears.

I walked back down to the house, got the camera, and returned to Beauty's Barn.  That's when I took the photo above of Roy looking at Scout's stall.  He wasn't too wild about the flash going off, so he went out the south door and then turned around to look back in:

Today, 24 hours after I returned with an empty trailer, Roy still hasn't ventured more than 20 yards from that barn door.  We're going to give him a little more time to come to terms with Scout's death, and then we'll see who we can pair him up with.  But for now, our hearts ache as much for Roy as for gentle old Scout.   

Ladies' Man

From the moment he arrived at the ranch a few months ago from Georgia, blind Briggs fancied himself as a ladies' man.  Nothing gets him more worked up than the nearby presence of a new female dog ... and yes, he's been neutered!  The only thing that comes close to generating that level of excitement is, well, dinner.  (He is a Beagle, after all.)

So whenever new females arrive ... whether they're old (like Lady) or young (like the Poodle sisters, Molly and Priscilla), or something in between (like Sweetie) ... he dashes about like mad, trying to introduce himself to them.  He really couldn't care less how old they are.  (If he were a human, I suspect he'd be the kind of guy who'd take out a personal ad saying, "Seeking: Any female, age 18-80" and wonder why no one replied.) 

In his mind he's this compact hunk of a guy with a soft, courtly Southern manner.  He can't imagine why these gals aren't drawn to him.

Alas, it turns out they aren't attracted at all to a pint-sized Beagle with bulging, mottled eyes who wobbles out to greet them.  (That until recently he was wearing a lampshade-sized cone on his head didn't help either.)  The fact that Briggs can't manage to stand still during the introduction suggests to them he has a drinking problem, though in reality it's the lingering effects of the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever he contracted in Georgia.  But the end result is rather alarming, and so the girls flee as soon as he shows up.

But Briggs remains undaunted, and he figures that an animal sanctuary with a steady stream of new female residents is the best place for a ladies' man like him to be anyway.  The right gal will show up one day.  Until then, he satisfies himself with a good roll in the spring sunshine:

Good News On Blind Lady

When I took blind Austin the Beagle to our vet clinic in Helena yesterday, I also brought along blind Lady, the old girl who came to us about a month ago from Missoula Animal Control.  A week after she arrived, our vets did an echocardiogram and found that Lady had a serious heart problem -- mitral valve regurgitation -- that had caused pulmonary edema, or fluid building up in her chest.  She also had Cushing's disease and a major urinary tract infection.  Based on her heart condition, they didn't think she'd have long to live ... a matter of months, most likely. 

We started her on multiple heart medications, antibiotics for the infection, and a British drug for Cushing's called trilostane, under the brand name Vetoryl.  (It's not approved for sale in the U.S. yet but the FDA allows veterinarians to order it from the U.K. through a special process.)   

So Lady was due for another echocardiogram and other tests to assess her heart function and see how well she was responding to the medications.  Our vet Dr. Jennifer Rockwell called today with good news from the echo:  While Lady's left atrium is still enlarged, it has improved, as has her heart's 'contractility,' or pumping ability.  Best of all, there was also no fluid building up in her chest, which was a very good sign and a major improvement. 

Jennifer was cautiously optimistic that given these trends, Lady might be able to live longer than they originally thought when they first saw her.  And that was great to hear!

I took the photo above of Lady a couple of weeks ago after we had her groomed ... her thick, shaggy coat was terribly matted underneath, so she needed to be shaved down.  She is mostly deaf, we learned, but if you're within about 10 feet of her and speak VERY LOUDLY, she can hear you ... and then she starts wagging that fluffy tail of hers in a happy greeting!

Blind Austin Gets His Eye Exam

I took our recent arrival from Atlanta, the blind Beagle puppy Austin, to see our vet Dr. Brenda Culver in Helena this morning.  Austin needed the usual "oil, lube and filter" work -- neutering, blood panel, and urinalysis -- but the first order of business on any of our blind arrivals is a thorough eye exam.  We want to know what they're blind from and what else is going on in their eyes, so we can anticipate any future medical needs.  In the photo above Brenda is getting ready to use her slit lamp to examine his eyes while vet tech Jayme J. holds Austin.

I had mentioned in my first post on Austin that his eyes "are clear but appear a little odd ... a tad undersized, perhaps, but not what would be considered microphthalmia."  Yet I couldn't quite put my finger on why they looked odd.  Well, it turns out that his corneas are misshapen, which changes the appearance of the eye ever so slightly.  But Brenda found he's blind because the optic disc in each eye -- where the optic nerve enters the retina, also called the "head" of the optic nerve -- is misshapen and too small.  This condition is called 'optic nerve hypoplasia.'  So that suggests Austin has been centrally blind from birth, even though his retinas looked good and have plenty of blood vessels supplying them.

Using her Tono-Pen, Brenda measured his intraocular pressures as well.  Those pressures were within normal range, so there's no sign of glaucoma developing.

Here's Brenda using the slit lamp to look into his right eye:

In this photo Brenda is using her ophthalmoscope and a magnifying lens to get a different view of his retinas:

We won't have his blood work or other results until tomorrow, but at the moment -- besides being blind -- he seems like a healthy little tyke.  Austin is still very timid greeting new people ... he drops to his belly, tucks his tail and looks very afraid ... but after you pet him and coo over him, Austin starts wagging his tail and gets up for more attention.  He has a long way to go before he will ever be as brassy and bold as blind Widget (see previous post), but under her tutelage, I'm sure we'll have another bossy blind Beagle on our hands some day!

Don't Mind Me While I Stand On You

It's a rare evening when Alayne and I can spend an hour watching something on TV, but last night after dinner we had a moment to watch a History Channel program on the aftermath of the American Civil War.  Blind Widget loves it when this happens, because it gives her an equally rare opportunity to walk all over us.  Literally.  We know when this is going to happen, because she perks up as soon as she hears us sit down, and then she marches over to the chair or couch we're on.  She figures out the best way to climb up, and then the next thing we know, she's on top of us, her face peering into ours.  That's what happened yesterday evening when I got this photo of Widget standing on Alayne.  (Yes, those things behind and next to Alayne are the dog beds that are usually covering the couch.)

Widget will give us some affection when she's doing this ... the occasional kiss ... but the main purpose seems to be, well, just to stand on us.  She will remain perched like a statue on a pedestal for as long as we let her.  Which is not very long, mind you, because that's a lot of weight pressing down on one's chest and stomach through four small paws. 

I am generally her victim, and with me, she stands on top and bobs her little tail proudly, as if she were a mountain climber planting a flag on some high peak.  For some reason yesterday she wasn't as confident about walking all over Alayne, so after some tail-bobbing that accompanied the initial conquest, her tail drooped a bit.  But she was confident enough to remain up there while I went to the office to get the camera and take the photo.

I've posted before about how Widget will loom over other dogs until they surrender their chair or bed to her.  It has occurred to us that this just might be the same technique at work, except directed at her human servants, rather than her canine companions.   

The Touch

This is blind-and-deaf Spinner on our front step this afternoon.  She was waiting not only for me to open the door for her, but to give her "the touch," as I call it.  Somewhere along the way she decided that she would not go through an open door until I had given her permission, and her chosen signal was for me to lightly touch her on the nose with my hand. 

I did not train her to do this.  She trained me.  I don't really remember when Spinner and I figured this out together, but early on I had a problem getting her to understand that it was okay to come in the house.  She'd stand at the door, knowing it was open because she could smell the inside air coming out, but she wouldn't go in.  So I finally tapped her on the nose with my hand, and she shot right into the house. 

"Oh, I get it," I said to myself.

Now whenever she's at the front or back door, she waits patiently ... head pointed up in the air ... for "the touch" that tells her to come in.  And in she goes.

Interestingly enough, as soon as I touch her nose, she puts her ears down.  She does the same thing when we blow on her (our other way to communicate).  It's recognition of some sort, as if it's her way of saying, "Okay, thanks, message received.  Here I come!"

Vet Student In Training

When our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor, came back today for the second round of dentals -- this time on the middle-aged set -- she brought with her Amy P., a fourth-year vet student from Oklahoma State University.  Typically in their fourth year, vet students are expected to do an "externship" ... working outside the university setting at a vet clinic to get some real world experience.  Erin's practice, Blue Mountain Veterinary Hospital, is one of those clinics that routinely hosts these vet students. (Not every clinic does.)

Amy, who will graduate from OSU's vet school next January, hasn't decided for sure which "track" -- small or large animal medicine -- she will pursue when she graduates, but she grew up with horses and was really enjoying her four weeks at Blue Mountain.  She also likes doing equine dental work, so she did most of our horses today under Erin's supervision. 

In the photo above, Amy is working on blind Lena.  Erin had already informed Amy of my strongly held and often expressed view that Lena is the prettiest horse in the universe.  Amy was quick to point out how beautiful Lena is, how gorgeous her coloring is, and how she is the perfect size for a horse.  And when she finished with Lena's dental, Amy stepped back, admired her work, and said, "That's the most beautiful job I've ever done!"

Here's a shot from the other side of Amy working on Lena:

And finally, here's a close-up after Amy got done (yes, there are teeth in there, but Lena's pulled her cheeks in):

Right after I took that shot, Lena stuck her tongue all the way out and smeared the camera lens.  I think she was trying to kiss me.  Erin suggested that wasn't likely because she was still sedated.  I'm not so sure.

That's A Nice Foot You Have

Despite all the snow we had, and the longest winter in eight years, we have already become concerned about the lack of spring rain.  We only had one appreciable rain so far, and the top inch or two of soil was dry.  Of course, the rain arrived on the same day that our farrier, Rich Boyle, came to trim the horses' hooves.  With 33 horses, that's a full day outside ... in the cold rain.  Oh, well.  So we took turns trading off the task of holding horses for Rich, who powered through the entire day.  That's Alayne holding blind Laddie in the photo. 

Laddie has a terribly arthritic left front knee -- it's swollen and he limps when he walks.  Our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor, gives him regular steroid injections in the knee to reduce the inflammation and make him more comfortable, and we also give him daily anti-inflammatories.  But Laddie is a case where every week we assess his quality of life.  These amazing animals can be so stoic that it is hard sometimes to tell just how much pain they're in and whether it's time to make the ultimate decision.  We only get one chance to get it right, and we sure don't want to make it too soon ... or wait too late. 

A couple of weeks ago we had begun to ask ourselves again whether we had reached that point with Laddie because of how he was acting.  He was walking more stiffly, seemed in more discomfort, and just didn't seem to be himself.  Laddie is not old ... still in his late teens.  He has good weight on him and is otherwise very healthy.  It's just his leg that is the issue. 

Erin wanted to inject his joints again, then give him a week and see how he responded.  Thus when Erin was out here last Thursday doing dentals, we did another assessment on Laddie.  I walked him around so she could see how he functioned, how his gait was, and how much pain he might be in.

She watched him closely for a few minutes and told me, "It's not time. But I think we can help him some more."  Erin wanted us to put a special shoe on his left foot to help compensate for his knee problem,which causes him to bow his lower leg out.  The result is that sometimes he bears too much weight on the outside edge of his hoof.

So Rich is showing off Laddie's new shoe, which provides more lateral support for his leg.  Although Laddie was a bit tentative at first -- he's not used to wearing horseshoes -- it definitely seemed to help him keep that leg straighter ... and the hoof flatter on the ground ... as he walked.

We're taking this one step at a time.  So to speak.

And Now ... Sweetie Gets Adopted!

How about a second incredibly happy ending in the same week?

John and Michelle W. from Buckley, Washington, had adopted a three-legged Border Collie named Cheyenne from us several years ago.  Cheyenne had just endured having her right front leg cut in half by a leg-hold trap and was sitting in the animal control shelter in Browning, Montana, about to be euthanized.  She had received no medical care for her leg or for her pain, and her leg was rotting and turning gangrenous.  You can read Cheyenne's story here.  Fast forward, and Cheyenne now happily runs John and Michelle's household, along with the rest of their dogs. 

We had another connection with John and Michelle, because they had adopted several dogs from the same shelter in Shelton, Washington, where we adopted our own Dolly, Dillon and Shiloh when Alayne and I were living in Seattle. 

John and Michelle recently lost their dog Molly to cancer, and they had always wanted to adopt another of our disabled animals when the time came.  As it turned out, John emailed me about an adoption the same week that we had been asked to take Sweetie, the dog from ... yes, Browning, Montana.  Maybe there's a little karma thing going on here, but Sweetie had ended up in the same shelter as Cheyenne, had the same mangled right front leg, and was rescued by the very same lady who had contacted us about Cheyenne. 

Hmm.

John and Michelle said "yes" to Sweetie, and they drove out to the ranch today to pick her up and take her home.

Sweetie had been coming out of her shell while she was here, and had learned that no one was going to hit her.  Although she still cowered initially, especially with men, once she realized she was safe with us she'd  start wagging her tail and beaming a big smile.  And while we typically don't let our dogs jump up on us, in Sweetie's case she had just started doing it ... and this was such an affirmation that she was trusting people and overcoming her fears that ... well, we were letting her do it.  (We figured there was time to work with her on this later!)  So here she is, saying goodbye to Alayne this afternoon:

Thank you, John and Michelle!

No, He's Not Dead

You could be forgiven for looking at this photo and thinking that we were preparing a horse body for burial.  Except our ancient Appaloosa named Crazy Horse is just fine, thank you -- he's enjoying being groomed while sleeping!

This past Saturday was one of our regular volunteer days, and with all the horses shedding out their winter coats, it was time for some major grooming.  Our wonderful volunteer Rosemary M. from Missoula went to go work on Crazy Horse, who was on the ground, sitting up on his chest, sternal.  Now, normally when you approach a horse who's down on the ground he or she will get up ... it's a self-preservation instinct. 

But he didn't budge, so Rosemary began brushing and curry-combing him.  Crazy Horse -- he's our only Appaloosa who isn't blind -- had been soaking in the spring sunshine and he was quite comfy just as he was.  So Rosemary kept grooming, and it felt so good that Crazy Horse just finally lay down all the way and started napping.  That shows you just how comfortable this old boy felt.  Alayne had seen this and went back to the house to get the camera and take these photos.

In this shot, it looks as if Crazy Horse is pointing out a tangle in his tail for some extra attention from Rosemary:

I don't think Rosemary was ever able to get to his other side, because he never got up!