Rolling Dog Farm

Settling In

Little Wilbur, our newest arrival, is settling in and making himself at home.  He spent his first couple of weeks in a bumper bed, keeping pretty much to himself, but in the past few days he's started getting out and about. I took these photos yesterday -- the one with Dexter was about 7:45 in the morning, and the one with Avery was just before noon. He was certainly happy to be out meeting and greeting, apparently.

Yes, that's a rather pronounced nipple on Avery; it's not cancerous or malignant, just an unusual 'beauty mark,' he calls it.

Speaking of teeth, after his dental surgery Wilbur now has only six teeth left in his mouth.  He and Dexter may be tied for first place in the "fewest teeth on the farm" category. They're quite a pair of "old gummers."

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The new Shelter Challenge started Monday, January 9 and ends at midnight on March 18. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

*** Okay, this is important, folks: We are now LISTED UNDER OUR NEW NAME, ROLLING DOG FARM.  State is still NH for New Hampshire. ***

Please remember, you can vote every day ... consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

We won $1,000 as a weekly winner in the last contest, and thousands more in the previous contests. The Shelter Challenge really does bring in a lot of money for the animals here!

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Wilbur's Eye Exam

Last Monday Alayne took our new arrival Wilbur to our vet clinic, Whitefield Animal Hospital, for his initial screening. In the photo above, Dr. Nancy Lefavour is using a Tono-Pen to check the eye pressure in Wilbur's bulging eye. (The Tono-Pen belongs to us and we have loaned it to the clinic, since they didn't have one. Most clinics don't have this particular diagnostic device.) Much to our surprise, his eye pressure turned out to be well within normal range. In this next photo Nancy is looking at the reading on the Tono-Pen:

Yet his eye is clearly bulging out, and blind, so if glaucoma isn't the culprit, what is? 

At the moment, we don't have the answer. We will probably next do an ultrasound of his eye to see if there is a tumor or growth pushing it out. 

Nancy also did a dental exam on Wilbur. She concluded that his mouth was such a mess, and so much work needed to be done, that she wanted to have both of the clinic's vets on hand. Our other vet, Dr. Chris Plumley, was out of town last week attending a veterinary conference, so we postponed Wilbur's surgery for this week.

On the plus side, we do know that Wilbur is thankfully heartworm negative, so we don't have to do the extensive heartworm treatment before proceeding with any surgery.

Stay tuned for updates on this adorable little boy!

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The new Shelter Challenge started Monday, January 9 and ends at midnight on March 18. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

*** Okay, this is important, folks: We are now LISTED UNDER OUR NEW NAME, ROLLING DOG FARM.  State is still NH for New Hampshire. ***

Please remember, you can vote every day ... consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

We won $1,000 as a weekly winner in the last contest, and thousands more in the previous contests. The Shelter Challenge really does bring in a lot of money for the animals here!

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please Welcome ... Wilbur!

This little 8-pound Chihuahua mix arrived a few days ago, sent to us by Rebecca Y. at Becky's Bridge, a rescue group in Shreveport, Louisiana. She had pulled him from a shelter in Garland, Texas, the week before. The lady who transported him for Rebecca described him as "really sweet but filthy - wet with urine and feces." When he got to Rebecca's place, she found he also has a mouth full of rotting teeth, many of which were black and green.

You get the idea -- along with that bulging eye, you can tell this boy has been the victim of real neglect.

When Rebecca took him to her vet clinic for the interstate health certificate for his travel to New Hampshire, the vet was actually pulling teeth out with his fingers during the exam. They were that loose and ready to fall out. That's how bad his mouth is. We have a vet appointment for him on Monday for a dental and to remove the bulging eye; we planned to do it as soon as he arrived but our vet wanted him on antibiotics for the oral infections to keep them from spreading via his blood during surgery.

Rebecca had named him Wilbur because he's round and sounds like a piglet. Yes, he snorts and grunts all the time. In fact, when we introduced him to some of the blind dogs on Thursday, they weren't sure what he was. This tiny, grunting thing didn't seem like a dog. We suspect the snorting may be from a fistula, or hole, in his mouth that opens into his sinus cavity. So whether he still sounds like Wilbur the pig after his surgery remains to be seen.

He is blind in his left eye but seems to have limited vision in his right eye. I did both a pupillary light reflex test (shining a light into the eye to see if the pupil constricts) and a menace response test (by moving an object quickly towards the eye to see if he blinks) and he passed both, so we know there is some vision there. Yet Wilbur does seem to be surprised by certain movements, and occasionally bumps into things, so it's not clear what's going on in that eye. We'll know more after his medical appointment.

He is a sweetheart -- a cuddlebug, very quiet, who is content to lie in his bed in the living room all day, curled up under a fleece blanket.  He's not only the newest member of the gang at the farm but also the smallest -- even Clyde, Fuzzy and Daisy dwarf this little guy.

And with that, Wilbur would like to excuse himself. "It's been nice meeting you," he says, "but I need to get back to napping":

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Blog Break: I will be traveling the rest of this week to visit family and will not be able to post on the blog until the following week. Alayne and Kate will be here. I'll have an update on Wilbur then.

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The new Shelter Challenge started Monday, January 9 and ends at midnight on March 18. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

*** Okay, this is important, folks: We are now LISTED UNDER OUR NEW NAME, ROLLING DOG FARM.  State is still NH for New Hampshire. ***

Please remember, you can vote every day ... consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

We won $1,000 as a weekly winner in the last contest, and thousands more in the previous contests. The Shelter Challenge really does bring in a lot of money for the animals here!

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Look, Someone Here Likes Me

Alayne got these photos the other evening when we were bringing the dogs in for the last time at night. Blind Owen the Beagle and Miss Irene suddenly started playing together, chasing each other across the floor and around the room. Alayne went to get the camera and started clicking away. It had been hard to photograph them because they were in such constant motion, skittering back and forth in the room, but then they ended up roughhousing on one of the beds, and that's when she took these shots.

Bear in mind Irene doesn't know or realize Owen is blind, and he doesn't know she can see ... and yet none of that keeps these two from having the time of their lives. One thing I love in watching Irene trying to get other dogs to play with her is her body language, which she displays plenty of in these photos:

Click on this next one for a larger and better view of her wild-eyed expression:

And finally ...

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$1,000 Weekly Winner Again -- Thank You!

Because of all of your votes, we were the weekly winner for week 3 again in the Shelter Challenge -- and that brought in another $1,000 gift for the animals here!  Thank you so much!

The new Shelter Challenge started October 3rd and ends at midnight on December 18th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.  [Yes, we are still listed as Rolling Dog Ranch for the purposes of the contest, not Rolling Dog Farm.]

Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!

Roadblock

This is what happens when Widget wants to stretch her legs occasionally during her 24-hour nap-fest and finds her exit down the ramp blocked ... in this case, by blind Madison. Even though Widget is blind, she knows Madison is there and lying across the bottom step of the ramp. She doesn't want to step on Grandma, who can get a wee bit cranky about such things.

So Widget will sit with her front feet on the top step, her rear end on the chair, and weave back and forth with her head until one of the household staff finally notices her predicament. Then we'll come over to lift her off and set her on the floor. Sometimes she'll just want to wander down the hall to the dog room to see if anything edible is left in the crates, other times she'll want to go outside for a stroll and a pee. But it's not long before she's back in the chair and sleeping again. It's amazing how fast 24 hours can go when you sleep through most of it.

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$1,000 Weekly Winner Again -- Thank You!

Because of all of your votes, we were the weekly winner for week 3 again in the Shelter Challenge -- and that brought in another $1,000 gift for the animals here!  Thank you so much!

The new Shelter Challenge started October 3rd and ends at midnight on December 18th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.  [Yes, we are still listed as Rolling Dog Ranch for the purposes of the contest, not Rolling Dog Farm.]

Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!

"Travels With Ace" Calendar To Benefit The Animals Here

John Woestendiek, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former journalist at the Baltimore Sun who now blogs on all-things-dog at Ohmidog!, has been on an extended trip across the United States with his dog Ace, inspired by (and retracing part of) John Steinbeck's journey in "Travels with Charley." John had first met us back in Ovando when he was a visiting professor at the University of Montana's School of Journalism several years ago. He and Ace came by last fall not long after we moved to New Hampshire. John is writing about his adventures with Ace on his site Travels With Ace.

Well, John has produced a calendar for 2012 featuring some of the highlights of the journey, and one month focuses on his visit to us here in New Hampshire. He has graciously dedicated 50% of the profits from the calendar sales to benefit the animals here. (Thank you, John!)

You can see more about the calendar here -- and on that page you'll see a photo of me with blind Patti that almost made me cry. When John sent me the link, I clicked on it, the page opened ... and there was the photo.

We're grateful to John for making such a generous offer to the farm!

Patti Died Tonight

Our beautiful blind girl Patti died tonight, just a few minutes before 7 p.m. She passed away here at home peacefully, lying on a big soft fleece bed in the dog room, covered with a fleece blanket. It was three weeks since she was diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma. She was one of our stars, a favorite of volunteers, employees, visitors and media over the years. Only four dogs have been with us as long as Patti -- Widget, Goldie, Cedar and Libby. So she was a fixture not only of the sanctuary, but of our hearts as well.

Still Trying

Here is another set of shots of Irene trying to win over Fuzzy ... though as usual, she didn't get anywhere. More sweet nothings in his ear, starting in the photo above.

Maybe she thought he was hard of hearing and she needed to get closer, so she lifts up his ear:

She wondered if perhaps he's the kind of guy who's more interested in deeds and not words, so maybe a little ear cleaning will earn his affections:

But she apparently got more than she bargained for, given the reaction on her face:

Click on the photo for a larger image and you'll see quite the expression!

All of which left Fuzzy imploring us to ... please ... make her go away:

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$1,000 Weekly Winner Again -- Thank You!

Because of all of your votes, we were the weekly winner for week 3 again in the Shelter Challenge -- and that brought in another $1,000 gift for the animals here!  Thank you so much!

The new Shelter Challenge started October 3rd and ends at midnight on December 18th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.  [Yes, we are still listed as Rolling Dog Ranch for the purposes of the contest, not Rolling Dog Farm.]

Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!

Maybe This Will Work

After a year of carrying the "table-hounds" down the hall to the dog room so Alayne and I could eat our own meals in peace, I finally found the doggie barrier we had used in Montana to keep the dogs out of the dining room and kitchen. A few weeks ago I put it back together and set it up, much to the consternation of the table-hounds. (Now I know why we say things like, "Stop hounding me!")

Blind Sophie, whose begging antics I have chronicled before here and here, immediately thought that this was simply another opportunity to see if sitting up and begging worked. It didn't. Food did not fall from the sky. No hand magically appeared, thrusting food towards her through the gate. In Sophie's world, "food happens." Except when it doesn't.

Alayne and I continued to enjoy our meal uninterrupted.

---

$1,000 Weekly Winner Again -- Thank You!

Because of all of your votes, we were the weekly winner for week 3 again in the Shelter Challenge -- and that brought in another $1,000 gift for the animals here!  Thank you so much!

The new Shelter Challenge started October 3rd and ends at midnight on December 18th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.  [Yes, we are still listed as Rolling Dog Ranch for the purposes of the contest, not Rolling Dog Farm.]

Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!

Patti's Diagnosis

It was just over a week ago that Alayne and I had been talking about blind Patti's remarkable health -- since her initial eye surgery after coming to us way back in 2003, we couldn't remember another trip she made to the vet clinic other than for routine care like dentals.

Maybe we shouldn't have said anything.

Last Sunday evening, as I was bringing Patti into the house for dinner from her yard, I noticed she wasn't her usual bouncy, springy self -- she usually bounds through the gate and twirls, happy to be going in for supper. But she almost meekly went through the gate, as if she didn't have any energy. I had to take her by the collar and guide her up the ramp to the back door. A few minutes later it was clear she wasn't interested in eating. The next day she seemed better; her temperature remained normal, there was never any vomiting or diarrhea, and no outward signs of anything wrong. Just not her usual energy. The only other odd thing we noticed on Monday was that she wasn't lying in her favorite spots in her yard, but was picking some unusual locations. Something wasn't right.

I called our vet clinic in Whitefield for an appointment; they didn't have any openings until Wednesday, but we could drop her off on Tuesday morning and our vet, Dr. Chris Plumley, would take a look at her in between other appointments. Only a few hours after Alayne left her at the clinic, Chris called. He had already managed to do an abdominal ultrasound and found a large mass on Patti's spleen. He could operate to remove her spleen, but he cautioned that he couldn't tell from his ultrasound whether the mass had spread elsewhere. If it had, we might be putting her through surgery unnecessarily. The mass could be benign and limited to the spleen, or it could be cancer and might have spread throughout her abdomen. 

I told Chris I wanted to take Patti to our internal medicine specialist in Burlington, Vermont, Dr. Bryan Harnett, for more detailed diagnostic imaging. My hunch was that we weren't looking at a benign mass limited only to the spleen. I didn't want to have her opened up, only to get a call while she's on the operating table, saying they had found other organs were involved and we probably shouldn't wake her up from anesthesia. (We've been in that terrible situation before.)

In the meantime, I asked Chris to go ahead and run a full blood panel on Patti, so I could have it ready for Bryan's consultation. I called his clinic for an appointment, and Bryan's first opening was Thursday morning. When Alayne went to pick up Patti and brought home her blood work, I took one look at the results and thought, "uh oh." Several values were off-the-chart low.

I scanned the blood work in on Tuesday evening and emailed it to Bryan. I told him that I had an appointment with him for Thursday but thought he should see the lab results in case he decided we should do anything different before then. At 8 p.m., he emailed back, asking us to bring in Patti as soon as we could on Wednesday and he'd fit her into the schedule.

So on Wednesday morning, we bundled Patti into the back seat of the truck and Alayne headed to Burlington with her. Alayne took the photo above of Bryan doing a physical exam on Patti.

With his advanced imaging, Bryan was able to determine that the mass had spread throughout Patti's abdomen -- to her liver and intestines, including the mesentery, the tissue that connects parts of the small intestine to the back wall of the abdomen. She was, in fact, riddled with multiple masses. He concluded that this was most likely hemangiosarcoma, a cancer that is so aggressive that she could have developed it only within the past two weeks ... but certainly within the past two months. 

There was, in short, nothing we could do for her at this point except keep her comfortable with pain meds. The episode of lethargy we saw on Sunday and Monday, Bryan said, was probably from one of the masses rupturing; as her body reabsorbed the blood and fluids, she began to feel better -- and indeed, the rest of this week she's almost been her old self. She's eating, her tail is wagging, and she looks downright happy ... just as she did right up until last Sunday.

But this will be a repeating cycle, and we may only have a couple of weeks left before having to let her go.

For the girl who's been the picture of pefect health for so many years, we were stunned at the sudden reversal of fortune. Long time blog readers know that she has been one of our "icons" here. She came to us after suffering unimaginable pain and abuse, but through her very sweetness and affectionate nature, she showed us how animals are immensely capable of forgiving -- if not forgetting -- what people have done to them. 

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Another Shelter Challenge begins -- and No. 3 again already!

The new Shelter Challenge started October 3rd and ends at midnight on December 18th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories ... please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.

And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.

You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.

Please note:  Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up.  [Yes, we are still listed as Rolling Dog Ranch for the purposes of the contest, not Rolling Dog Farm.]

 Because of your votes, we just won $1,000 as a weekly winner in this round of the Shelter Challenge. Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!