Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary

Road To Recovery

I should have pointed this out in yesterday's post but somehow I got sidetracked with all that OCD symmetry discussion:  the fact that blind Callie is up in the chair is a major milestone in her recovery from her brain tumor.  Last week, in fact, was the first time we saw her climb up into that chair unassisted since coming back from WSU last April.  She used to love sleeping in those arm chairs all the time.  She'd climb first onto the cot below and then use that as a platform to stand on while she climbed into the chair.  But after her radiation, she no longer could do this -- why we're not entirely sure.  So the only time she'd be able to get in the chair was when we'd pick her up and put her there.  But then, finally, late last week Alayne saw her climb up on her own ... and this weekend marked only the second time she's done it.  It's been a long road for her, step by step, and we were delighted to see her able to do this again.

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Please vote for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge -- and you can vote every day!  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

Matched Set

I have this issue about symmetry.  I like things to be arranged symmetrically.  Neatly.  In matching order. Over the years I have driven volunteers, employees and contractors crazy with my need for symmetry.  When we built the first cat house on the ranch in 1999 we were still living in Seattle and weren't here when the building went up.  But when we drove out, turned down the drive and saw it for the first time from 1/4 mile away, my immediate reaction was ... "Ohmigod, it's off by 4 degrees!"  It wasn't lined up exactly on the same north/south axis as the house or the wood shed.  I wanted to hook a chain to it and jerk it into the correct alignment.  I didn't, nor did I make the contractors move it to its proper place in the universe, but I have noticed that 4-degree misalignment ever since.  It's just not right, if you know what I mean.  (If you don't, that's okay.) 

Some people have rolled their eyes when I insist our compost windrows need to be lined up in perfectly parallel rows, running east/west, evenly spaced apart.  Others ... well, I could go on but it's probably better if I stop here.

One person who has lived with me for a long, long time suggests my need for symmetry borders on OCD.  I won't mention the source of that presumed diagnosis, but I think she might exaggerate just a wee bit.  Nevertheless, there is a positive side to this -- I knew you were wondering -- and that is, I notice when things are, quite by chance, arranged symmetrically.  It is so pleasing to the eye, so in tune with the way it should be, that I think, "Oh, look, how wonderful!  I should take a photo of that!"

Which is what I was thinking when I looked over and saw this matched set of Dachshunds in the living room on Saturday morning.  That's blind Callie on the left and Daisy on the right.  I will admit, it did bug me just a little that the color of the throw on Callie's chair was a shade off from the throw on Daisy's chair, but as I've gotten older (much older, alas), I've learned to step back and appreciate the bigger picture symmetry and not let the details get in the way.

So there you have it.  Matching Dachsunds, curled up in the exact same way, on matching chairs.  The Gods of Symmetry were much pleased.

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Some folks asked why Moose didn't have "house privileges" any longer, i.e., why he was over at Widget's House and not in our home.  The short answer:  Just not enough room.  There's only so much space in a 1,400 square foot home, and he is one very big boy.  When Gabe moved in (we always keep the blind-and-deaf ones here with us) and then Willie came back, there was no more room left at the inn.  It is not true that because we already had one yellow Lab (Brody) at Widget's House, I wanted to add a second yellow Lab to achieve some kind of symmetry.

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Please vote for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge -- and you can vote every day!  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

Weather Wuss

I got this photo this morning of blind Moose and blind Penny drinking from the water bucket on the Widget's House porch.  I had let the dogs out just a few moments before.  (On Penny, you can see the shaved area where the growth was removed.  She's doing fine.)

Moose is a real wuss when it comes to the weather -- if it's below 60° (15°C) outside, he thinks it's impossibly, frightfully cold.  So when we put them outdoors, he rarely leaves that dog house on the porch, which has a heated bed in it and is covered with blankets to better hold the warmth in.

After 8 hours in a crate for the night, he heads out the front door, makes an immediate right turn into the area where the water bucket is, and disappears into the dog house.  No stopping to pee first!  Then, when I bring out the water bucket (we keep it in the building overnight), he comes out only halfway from the dog house to drink ... and then disappears back inside it.  He'd much prefer I hand the bucket to him inside the dog house so he doesn't have to come out at all.  He'll stay in there for a couple of hours longer before finally coming out to pee.  (Another amazing bladder.)

At night, when I put them back outside for the final potty break before bedtime, I actually have to close the gate to this area because he will go straight into the dog house rather than wander off into the yard to do his business.  (Then, at 1 a.m., he'll realize he needs to pee really, really badly in his crate!  And you-know-who has a crate to clean the next morning.)

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Please vote for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge -- and you can vote every day!  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

Get Me Outta Here

I spent today in Missoula on the weekly run, driving in with a truck full of dogs -- the blind Poodle sisters Molly and Priscilla to the groomers (finally!), and blind Penny and Dexter the Dachshund to our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Dave Bostwick.  While the dogs were all being attended to, I did grocery shopping, went to Costco for supplies, took deposits to the bank, interviewed a horse trainer we're going to use to work with blind Cash (more later), and made a few other stops along the way. 

Penny needed yet another growth removed from her lower back.  Dave thinks it was benign but sent it off for a biopsy to confirm.  As for Dexter ... well, there turned out to be nothing at all wrong with him, which is why he was probably more indignant than usual about being in a cage. 

The other day Alayne felt a lump on his neck under his jaw, and when Dexter turned his head towards the light, she could see it as well.  She had me look at him, and I could definitely feel it ... and another one on the other side of his neck, too.  Swollen lymph nodes ... uh oh ... was my first thought.

Then I remembered something.  When I took blind Callie to WSU for her brain tumor radiation, the 4th year vet student who did Callie's initial pre-intake physical exam felt lumps under her jaw on both sides ... and she was concerned that Callie's cancer might have spread to her lymph nodes.  The vet student wanted to know if the referring vet -- in this case, it was Dave -- had mentioned these lumps to us.  By the time I got Dave on the phone to ask about them, the oncologist had already walked into the room, felt the lumps, and said, "Oh, those are just very pronounced salivary glands!"  Which is exactly what Dave was telling me, between chuckles, on the phone.  It was a good learning for both the vet student and me.

So when I dropped Dexter off this morning with Penny, I told Alex, Dave's vet tech, that I was 99% sure these were salivary glands I was feeling on Dexter ... but just in case, let's have Dave do an exam and he can have another chuckle at my expense.  What made me just a tad bit nervous was the fact that after first feeling the lumps on Dexter, I went around and examined all the other Dachshunds -- and not one had lumps like that.  Alayne and I thought, hmm, we'd better find out and not make an assumption.

Sure enough, they were salivary glands.

So when I went back to the clinic this afternoon to pick up Penny and Dexter, the wee-one was very vocal about being locked up for no reason at all.  And since I didn't move fast enough to get him out, he threw his head back to let rip:

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Please vote for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge -- and you can vote every day!  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough ... Take The Path

At a certain point in the winter, when the snow gets deep enough, the dogs typically don't go wandering off any longer (with a few exceptions, like blind Helen and Widget!) but end up sticking to the multiple narrow paths they create around the buildings.  This makes it easier for their humans, too -- not only for walking, but for poop scooping, too, since they tend to do their business in the paths.  (Be careful where you walk!)

But the various paths make it especially easy for the little guys, like the Dachshunds, to get around outside and go for a spin, so to speak.  Alayne got these shots of Bailey out for his mid-day constitutional, in which he just has to go outside and make his way through all the paths before going back inside.  It's kind of like going for a drive to see the sights.  (Sort of.)

Did I already mention the dogs use the paths for certain functions?  Which means there's always time to stop and smell not the roses but something more interesting:

And then it's time to move on...

Until you get to the end and turn around for another jaunt:

You know, it may not be the same as cruising the Pacific Coast Highway in California, but out here we've got to make do with what we have.

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Please vote for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge -- and you can vote every day!  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

Whirling Willie

I know this looks like a Beagle who's not doing anything, but actually blind Willie (who recently came back to us) is about to wind himself up for a morning whirl.  Most mornings now, as soon as Alayne lets him out of Kelly's Cottage, he goes off to pee and then comes back around the cottages to do a whirling happy dance.  This is really quite a contrast with his usual demeanor, which is shy and timid, and he has a body posture to match -- he often slinks low to the ground when he walks.  But suddenly in the mornings, it's as if someone pops a champagne cork ... and off he goes whirling in a circle.  (The only other one who does this is blind Widget, who might have taught him how to loosen up a bit.)

Alayne tried to capture a full 360° set of photos showing the whirling dance, but the camera was struggling with the dark dog on the white snow and the flash kept going off, slowing down the shutter, so she only managed to get one frame of "the whirl":

Although still meek (he'll let a Dachshund push him away from his food bowl), we were delighted to see how much he's starting to enjoy himself.  A whirling Beagle is a better Beagle!

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Please vote for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge -- and you can vote every day!  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

I Could Use A Hand, Please

This is blind and three-legged Helen, who ventured off yesterday morning in the yard and got stuck in snow that was too deep for her.  This has never been a problem for her in the past, but she's really getting up there in age now and she's developed hip dysplasia in her remaining rear leg -- and that makes maneuvering in deep snow a real challenge.  This is the first winter she's had this problem, and we think she's finally beginning to figure out she isn't the athletic girl she once was ... but she's still getting herself in a pickle every now and then.

And rather than struggle and flounder around in the snow and wear herself out, she patiently stands there and waits for us to notice she's stuck.  Whenever we let her outside, we keep an eye out in case this happens and she needs a human tow-truck to come along.  So we know, when we see her standing motionless, that she's ready for us to come and get her unstuck.  This is what she looked like yesterday when she heard Alayne coming for her:

We hope that before this winter is over, she'll learn not to follow her nose into the deep snow but stay close to the house!

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Please vote for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge -- and you can vote every day!  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

Wobble And Roll

The other evening I heard all this rolling back and forth outside my office door, and turned around at my desk to see blind and wobbly Briggs just having the time of his life.  He had woken from a nap and felt so good he just wanted to roll around on his back ... and roll he did.  This is one of the remarkable things about this boy -- despite the double whammy of his wobbliness and his blindness, he is just one of the happiest, most joyful little characters we have.

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Please vote for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge -- and you can vote every day!  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.

Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Last year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for a wonderful gift for the animals here.

Thank you!

What, You're Having Lunch Without Me?

I got this shot on Saturday, when I looked over from the dining table and saw Daisy staring at us with this earnest expression ... possibly bordering on dismay.  She was in the living room and we were safely in the dining room, behind the "Barbarian's Gate" we put up last year to allow ourselves some meals without being pestered for handouts. Yes, we were having lunch and she was not.  Hence the problem as far as she was concerned.

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Yes, it's starting all over again!  The latest round of the Shelter Challenge begins Monday, January 18th.  We just received last Wednesday the $20,000 check for the Grand Prize from the previous contest that ended in December -- wow, what a treat that was to get!  Looks like they have changed the prize amounts for this round ... but plenty of money to help the animals!

Click here to vote starting on Monday.

Just like last time, enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state code, MT, for Montana, to bring up our listing.

Thank you!

Say, How Did Your Radiation Therapy Go?

I noticed our two radiation therapy patients, blind Callie and blind Gabe, lying on a cot together yesterday evening in the living room.  As soon as I started taking photos, Callie sprang to life and gave me this funny nose-up-ears-out look.  (Gabe's ears, on the other hand, are always up-and-out.)  Both Callie and Gabe had spent weeks last year at Washington State University's teaching hospital for cancer treatment, Callie for a brain tumor and Gabe for a nasal tumor.  I wondered if they had been trading stories about their time at WSU.

I had just mentioned to Alayne the day before that the hair on Gabe's face was really beginning to grow back.  After his surgery and then radiation, he had lost all of his hair in that area, his skin pigmentation eventually turned black, and we worried for months that the hair wouldn't grow back.  But all of a sudden, little hairs started growing around the edges of the radiation field ... and then more and more, they began filling it in.  You can still see the outlines on Gabe's face, but not too long ago, that was pretty much bald and black. 

Because of the location of her tumor and how the radiation was directed at it, Callie never really lost any hair ... though she did kind of lose her bearings for a while after the treatment.  But fortunately, both dogs are doing just great now.