Alayne got this shot of Oliver and Twist the Dachshunds roughhousing with blind Austin the Beagle.  These threesomes are an ever-changing loop of chaos, with the role of who's-on-top shifting constantly.  In this case, Oliver is getting it from both ends in what might seem to be a coordinated flanking assault -- but in reality is more likely to be sheer fleeting happenstance.  You'd think the blind dog might be at a disadvantage in a melee like this, but as the photo shows, Austin is on his feet (for the moment, anyway) while Oliver has been rolled over.  And it's hard to get up when your best friend, Twist, has your leg in his mouth!

Austin loves to roughhouse with anyone who will join in the fray, but his favorite wrestling buddies are definitely these two characters, Oliver and Twist.

I headed into Missoula today for the weekly errand run to town, but the "main event" was taking blind Goldie to see our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Dave Bostwick, for her last chemo treatment.  After surgery to remove a mast cell tumor back in August, Goldie started a long course of chemotherapy that required a total of eight treatments.  I took the photo this morning of Dave administering the chemo while his vet tech Tracy holds Goldie.

Dave had told us then that he'd never had a dog become sick from this particular chemo drug, vinblastine, and Goldie kept Dave's track record perfect.  Not once did she ever show any side-effects or even become lethargic.  In fact, she always got so excited whenever we pulled up to Dave's clinic that I liked to joke we'd never seen any dog look forward to chemotherapy as much as Goldie.

We also realize just how blessed we are, because the type of chemo drug can make all the difference in the world.  In Goldie's case, we were lucky.  Other dogs with different kinds of tumors require chemo drugs that can really take a toll on the animal.

Goldie will stay on prednisone for another three months, and then she'll be completely off any medication for her cancer. 

For now, we're putting this one in the "win" column!

A week ago, I wrote a blog post about Margaret's ambitions to become the Obama family's new First Pet.  Well, Margaret's campaign for the White House made it all the way to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., today.

Roll Call, a newspaper that covers the innerworkings of the U.S. Congress and is widely read by members of Congress, their staffs, lobbyists, corporate government relations executives and others who follow Congress closely, published a story on Margaret in their Monday issue.  It appeared in their "Heard on the Hill" column that starts on page 1, and the item on Margaret ran in the rest of the column that continued on page 20.  That's it above.  (Click on the image for a larger version.)  The headline is about another topic in the column.

This started when Randi S., one of our fabulous supporters in Washington, D.C., emailed our blog post to a staff writer at Roll Call early last week.  I didn't think more of it until the phone rang on Friday morning, and I found myself talking with a reporter from the paper.  After getting off the call, I emailed the reporter the photos from the blog post, and lo and behold, look what showed up in Roll Call!

The caption for the photo reads, "As the Obama family contemplates what kind of puppy to bring with them to the White House, Margaret the Goat of Ovando, Mont., campaigns for a place in the Obama administration. Maybe if Montana had voted Democratic..."

The story reads:

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The Obama Scapegoat? While D.C. insiders squabble over who will get the Secretary of State gig in the Obama administration (yawn), most of the country has been enthralled over a more pressing question — which breed of dog will the future first family pick?

But in a town that’s all about competing interest groups, nothing is ever that simple, and now there’s another four-legged creature lobbying to be First Pet.

Margaret the Goat lives at the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary in Ovando, Mont. While most of the residents at the nonprofit sanctuary are disabled dogs and cats, Margaret came to the ranch on work duty, assigned to eat pesky out-of-control weeds, ranch overseer Steve Smith tells HOH. But instead, Margaret ignored her duties to hang out with the staff.

“She is more like a dog than a goat. She follows people all over the place,” Smith says. “She goes for a walk down to the mailbox to get the mail with you.”

With her friendly disposition (and entitled I-don’t-want-to-work nature), Margaret would make a perfect White House pet, Smith argues. To get the word out, Smith posted an item on the ranch’s blog about Margaret, writing that there’s precedent: Former Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Harrison both kept goats at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Even if Margaret doesn’t make it to Washington, Smith says he’s just happy that the Obamas plan to get a rescue dog rather than a pet from a breeder. He even offered up Molly and Priscilla, two blind standard poodles who live at the ranch, noting that they are hypoallergenic.

“There are absolutely wonderful animals in shelters today that would make terrific family pets,” Smith says. “We were just thrilled that the Obamas decided they were going to adopt.”

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Meanwhile, Margaret spent the day expecting CNN to call any minute and is surprised they haven’t yet.

Last Thursday I drove to our vet clinic in Helena to get Buddy and Jake, the two blind dogs who arrived from Nashville on November 6th.  After picking them up at the airport in Bozeman that day, I had taken them to our vets for medical checks, eye exams, and blood panels.  After a week at the clinic, it was finally time to bring them home to the ranch.  We put them in our isolation cottage and yard for their first few days here, to give them a chance to acclimate themselves and get acquainted with us.

Between their stay in the private boarding kennel in Nashville and the time spent at our vet clinic, we figured they had already completed a two-week quarantine period after getting out of Metro Animal Control in Nashville.  (We typically isolate our new arrivals for two weeks for health reasons.)  So today, on a quiet Sunday, we were ready to let them out to start exploring and meeting some of the other animals. 

Alayne and I walked them over to a large 1/2 acre (.20 hec) yard that sits between our house and the various yards around Widget's House, our main dog building.  I took the photo above of Alayne with Buddy on the left and Jake on the right this afternoon.  I managed to get those adorable simultaneous head tilts by making ridiculous high-pitched squeaking noises from behind the camera.  (Alayne does not respond to those noises.)

Our vet, Dr. Brenda Culver of Montana Veterinary Specialists, determined they are both blind from a retinal atrophy.  In addition, Buddy's right retina is starting to detach, which Brenda thought she detected with the slit-lamp and confirmed with an ultrasound of his eye.  But at this point both dogs have comfortable eyes -- their intraocular pressures (IOP) were normal -- and there's nothing we need to do besides continue to monitor them.  Down the road we may see other changes, like cataracts developing, but for right now they're fine.  Their blood work, Brenda said, looked great.

The boys had a wonderful time this afternoon exploring their new yard and doing the usual "getting-to-know-you" introductions across the fence.  Here's Buddy meeting that other southern hound dog, Trooper from Louisiana -- please note how high both tails went up:

Since Trooper can see, all the blind dogs at Widget's House were hounding him (so to speak) for a full report on the new arrivals -- looks, size, breed, coloring, etc.  The blind Poodle sisters from Texas, Molly and Priscilla, had only one question on their mind:  "Just how cute are these new boys?"  (They might be getting a little bored with their two-timing Cajun boyfriend.)

After some more introductions at the fence, off they went to check things out:

Here's a close-up of Jake:

Both dogs are very, very skinny, so we've got some serious weight gain to work on with them.  This next shot gives you a better idea of how thin Jake really is.  Yikes, look at those ribs:

And this one will show you how skinny Buddy is (click on image for a larger version):

That's blind Babe from Washington state in the background on the left, and Trooper is on the right -- no doubt nervously keeping an eye on the potential competition in the yard next door.

Both dogs are very sweet, and as you can see in this last photo, Jake was ready to give some kisses during the photo session with Alayne:

Thanks to the efforts of Simone R. in Washington, D.C., and the attorneys in D.C. and Nashville, these blind boys finally got the chance to start their new life here in Montana.

Alayne and I had just gotten up from the dinner table the other evening when we saw blind Callie start climbing into the toy box in the living room.  Now, this was something we had never seen a dog do before.  And for good reason.  For starters, it's hard to climb into, with high metal sides that bend outwards from the base.  It's even more insurmountable (or so we thought) for a short-legger like Callie, because the box is quite a bit taller than she is.

But as we stood there watching, puzzled, she continued to maneuver her way into it, first with her front paws on the rim and then pulling herself up over the edge and into it.  We wondered what she was doing, and then it occurred to us she must have momentarily become confused and thought it was a bed.  Callie isn't into toys, so we knew she wasn't doing this to get a favorite plaything.   Frankly, neither one of us thought she could actually hoist herself all the way into it, and moreover, we figured she would suddenly realize what it was and quit midway. 

We were wrong. 

Over the top she went! 

I zoomed into the office to get the camera.

As soon as she landed inside the toy box, she realized her mistake.  She instantly had this odd look on her face.  "Oops!  This isn't what I thought it was!" 

She milled around on top of the toys, determined where her four corners were and the size of the box, and confirmed her navigation error.  We could see the Dachshund version of a worried, furrowed brow develop on her face.  "Dang.  How embarrassing.  Definitely not a bed."  I don't think it helped that she knew we were standing there watching her.

Now she turned her attention to trying to get out of the toy box.

Not wanting to prolong her embarrassment, and not wanting to have her jump out of the box, Alayne scooped her up and set her on the floor.  Mustering as much dignity as she could, Callie waddled off in search of the real thing.

I sat down at the breakfast table this morning and looked over to see this sight next to me -- that's blind and deaf Spinner ... or Spin, as we usually call her -- sound asleep on the cot.  There was something striking about the angles and colors that caught my eye, so I headed to the office to get the camera.

Here's the straight-on view:

One of the ways you can provide "mental stimulation" for a blind dog is with a scent trail.  You take small dog treats that have a fairly distinct smell and lay them out on the ground, every 10 to 20 feet or so, and create a winding trail of the treats for 30 yards or more.  The dogs set out to find the treats, just using their noses.  It's quite a game, and they love it.

Well, our employee Cindy inadvertently turned herself into a walking scent trail for one of our blind dogs who has an incredibly acute sense of smell.  Cindy often carries some dog cookies in her coat pocket while she's outside working in the dog yards, scooping the poop and doing those kinds of daily chores.  Blind Allie figured out that Cindy was usually carrying treats with her, and began following her wherever she went.  Allie is mostly deaf -- she can only hear very loud noises within a few feet of her -- so she relies on her nose for almost everything.  The yard that Allie plays in during the day is about a half-acre, so there's quite a bit of ground to cover ... but cover it she does.

This has turned into a daily contest, with Allie doing her best to track Cindy across the yard.  So the other day Cindy picked up the camera we have at Widget's House and took these photos of Allie following her human scent trail.  In the photo at top, Allie has just realized -- using only her sense of smell -- that Cindy has entered the yard.  She sprang out of the dog house and set off in pursuit.

Here she is, on the case:

Dang that sagebrush, it may smell nice but it sure can throw your nose off:

Now she's getting closer:

And here she realizes she may have finally cornered her quarry:

Which means, of course, only one thing: "It's time for that treat I know you have in your pocket!"