Rolling Dog Farm

Eyes, Throats and Other Horse Things

Our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, came out this afternoon to give the horses their fall shots and do some procedures.  First we did the shots and gave them their wormer while we were at it.  Then we turned to the procedures.

In the first photo, Bill is testing the intraocular pressure (or IOP) on Cactus Jack, who came to us blind from glaucoma.  My layperson's explanation of glaucoma is that the fluid produced inside the eye stops draining out normally, which causes the pressure inside the eye to increase, which then causes loss of vision.

Bill is using a device called a Tono-Pen, which is very lightly pressed against the center of the eyeball.  It can register the pressure inside the eye.  Most vets do not have this device because it costs $3,000 to purchase new, and few of them see enough glaucoma cases to justify the expenditure. 

Our small animal vets in Helena have a Tono-Pen, however, and we were very familiar with its use because of the number of glaucoma cases we have in our dogs.  But Bill did not have a Tono-Pen in his practice.

So when Cactus Jack first arrived, it drove us crazy that we couldn't measure his IOP.  Without knowing what it was, we couldn't tell if it was getting worse, or how much discomfort he might be in. 

We decided to write to Medtronic, the big medical device manufacturer who makes the Tono-Pen, and ask if they would donate one to the sanctuary.  We figured the answer would be 'no,' but it couldn't hurt to ask.  To our astonishment, Medtronic quickly offered to donate a refurbished one -- these cost about $1,500 -- and two weeks later, it arrived via UPS.

The good news from today's test is that Cactus Jack's IOP has dropped significantly ... from 80 units of mercury (don't ask, I can't explain) to the mid-20's.  His eyes no longer bulge like they used to.  It has not made a difference in his vision, but it is a sure sign his eyes are very comfortable now. 

In this photo, Bill is taking aspirates of an enlarged thyroid from our blind Appy named Scout.  I discovered this lemon-sized lump in his throat earlier this week, while I was hugging him.  (He's a huggable horse.  What can I say?)  Bill is sticking a needle into the mass, and pulling cells out to send in for pathology tests. 

And here is what sweet old Scout looked like from the other side.  I took this just as the needle was going into his throat.  Bless his heart, he just stood there ... not very happy about it, but quite stoic.

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Sugar Died Tonight

I had just driven up to the house this evening from a vet run to Helena when Alayne came out the back door.  She was in tears.  "Sugar just died!  She's dead!," she kept saying.  I couldn't believe it.  We'd only had this blind Springer Spaniel for a few months, and she seemed to be in great health.  It was 5:45 p.m.  I raced into the house.

Sugar was keeled over on the dining floor, right by her food bowl.  Alayne was in shock because it had happened so suddenly, just a couple of minutes before.  Alayne had  been in the middle of feeding the dogs their dinner.  She had gone over to the living room to help Sugar off her cot and lead her into the dining room to her food bowl.  Mealtime was the best part of the day for Sugar.  Knowing dinner was coming, as usual she was wagging her little tail and wiggling with delight.  She got to the food bowl, stood there for a second, and then collapsed on the floor.  No struggle, no gasps, no distress.  Just gone.  In an instant.

I checked for any visual response.  There wasn't any.  I couldn't find a pulse.  Alayne handed me the stethoscope to listen for a heartbeat.  Nothing.

We sat there by her body for a while, just stunned.  Sugar looked like she always did, but there was no life in her. 

We called our vet in Helena, Dr. Brenda Culver, and asked what could have happened.  She suspects, as did we, that Sugar suffered a heart attack.  All the signs point to that as the cause.

Alayne and I picked up Sugar and carried her back to her cot.  We needed to see her there, one last time, the same way she spent every day here.  She loved that cot in the living room.  The photos you see in this post we took soon after she arrived at the ranch.  She had discovered that cot on her first day and this became her spot.  There was no better place.  You can read her original story here.

Goodbye, you sweet old Spaniel.

   

Blind Levi Arrives From Seattle

This is blind Levi, who just arrived this week from a rescue group in Seattle.  He had been found abandoned by a highway in eastern Washington, was picked up by animal control, and then scheduled to be euthanized.  Just in time some volunteers pulled him from the shelter and transported him to the private group in Seattle named Rescue Every Dog. 

Debbie W. from Rescue Every Dog e-mailed us and asked if we could take him.  They had not been able to adopt him out because of the "three B's" -- he's big, black and blind.  Any one of them alone is enough to dim a dog's adoption prospects, but all three together is a major obstacle.  Once we agreed to take Levi, Debbie arranged to fly him to Missoula.

Debbie, incidentally, is the same person who sent blind Cedar our way a few years ago.  At that time she was volunteering for a shelter in Wenatchee, Washington. 

Levi is a sweet, sensitive boy who just craves attention.  He is confident enough to go exploring on his own, but would really much rather be in your lap.  He's a bit large for the lap-dog routine at 60 pounds.  He looks to us like a cross between a black Lab and an Akita.  Look at that tail!

I tried to get a close-up of him, but do you have any idea how hard it is to photograph a black dog against white snow?  The camera can't figure out how to deal with the stark black/white contrast, and yours truly is not enough of a photographer to know how to make the adjustment manually.  (If it goes off 'auto' I'm dead.)

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Winter. It's Here.

Winter arrived last night with about 6 to 8 inches of beautiful, wet snow.  We knew this storm was coming, so we spent a good part of yesterday pulling all the horses in from pasture, installing heaters in their water tanks, and getting stalls ready.  When we got done late yesterday evening, all the horses were snug in their barn stalls or their run-in sheds.

I took these photos at dawn this morning.  The first shows several of the barns and run-in sheds, looking southeast from the house.  The second is of Widget's House, our main building for disabled dogs, looking northwest from the house.

Tonight the National Weather Service is forecasting temperatures as low as 7 to 13 degrees, so it will be brisk indeed!

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Blind Ashley: 1, 2, 3

I caught our little blind puppy Ashley last night snoozing in her favorite spot, a soft round bumper bed that fits her perfectly (but not for long, she's growing like a weed!).

Each time I took a photo, her expression would change. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she knew I was there, and she could hear the click of the shutter.

I couldn't tell if she could detect light from the flash, or if she was responding only to the shutter noise.

But each time the camera went off, she'd give me a different look.  You could tell she was wondering, "What is he doing???"

This little puppy has turned out to be a very bright girl.  You can see her really thinking as she navigates her way around the house and yard.  And she has  astonished us by how fast she has mapped her environment.

We'll take her outside to pee, and we are back in the house for no more than a minute and she's already at the door, barking to be let in.  Now, mind you she has to find the walkway first, then the steps, and then make her way up them before she gets to the door.  All this in complete darkness.  In 60 seconds or less.

Blind and Deaf, Sound Asleep

Here's a photo I took tonight, just a few minutes ago.  We were starting to herd the dogs out the door to start the bedtime process, and I looked over and noticed blind and deaf Spinner sleeping without a care in the world.  There is one (and only one) advantage to being blind and deaf, and that is you can always get a good night's sleep.

Here we were, milling around the living room, dogs headed to the door, I'm clapping my hands to encourage the slow-pokes, and Spinner is oblivious to all of it.  I finally had to touch her head with my hand to wake her up.

She is doing fine back here at the ranch.  She just isn't sure what the trip to California was all about.  And it's not like she got to SEE anything, you know?  I've been trying to think what that trip would have been like for her ... all the different smells along the way, what it must have felt like when the airplane took off and landed, and what she was thinking at the time.  Minute by minute, the only real indicator she had about everything happening was what her nose was telling her.

Yet, as you can see, she came through it without a hitch.  She was a wonderful little traveler.  But much happier to be home, of course!

A Call From The County Attorney's Office

The Deputy County Attorney for Cascade County in Montana -- Great Falls is the county seat -- called today to see if we could take a blind horse caught up in a large-scale animal cruelty case.  A couple has nearly 140 dogs, 17 cats, 17 horses, and other animals.  Many of the dogs apparently are pretty much running free in large packs on the property.  The blind horse is penned in an enclosure fenced with barbed wire ... which is of course the wrong fencing for a blind horse.

We agreed to take the blind horse, but we may not be able to go and pick it up until after their trial on Nov. 23.  We also offered to help if they found any of the other animals were disabled.

You can read an article on the case in today's Great Falls Tribune here.

For an earlier article from the Tribune with more details about the animals' living conditions, go here.

This case has been going on for months, as you'll see from the articles.

A few years ago a court in Ravalli County (in the Bitterroot Valley) asked us to take a horse from an animal neglect case while the defendant went through the judicial process.  We picked up the horse in January that year, the trial was in July, the owner was convicted, then appealed, and by the time a plea-bargain was reached and the court gave us custody of the horse, it was December.  The horse, a sighted Paint mare named Patches, is still here at the ranch today.  She's a sweet, loving girl who can't be ridden because of a lameness issue, so she's your classic 'pasture ornament.'  She's also a flirt with visitors.

Spinner's Surgery: Heartbreak

I just got back to the hotel room with Spinner, and I'm sorry to report that our blind and deaf dog is ... still blind and deaf.  At least for now. 

The eye surgeon was not optimistic when he called immediately after the surgery today.  He had found that her right eye was shrunken in size and abnormally shaped, a condition known as microphthalmos.  It's non-visual.  After cutting the fibrous tissue holding that eyeball in its rotated and down position, it did not 'float' back up to where it would normally be.  We still see white when we look at that eye.

Her left eye did rotate up, although not all the way.  That's the good news.  Unfortunately, the surgeon found this eye compromised by a big cataract.  Aaaargghh!  He could not do cataract surgery because that procedure requires an electro-retinogram to determine whether the retina is firing; if it isn't, surgery isn't an option.  And even if the retina is working, cataract surgery requires a week's worth of pre-operative ocular medications to get the eye ready.

Spinner bumped her way through the doorway and into the hotel room, and then bumped into all the furniture as she made her way around.  I tried a 'menace response' test on her left eye -- by suddenly waving the hand rapidly towards the eye, which in a normal eye results in blinking -- but there was no response. 

There might still be some hope.  She may have some peripheral vision in the cataract eye that will become apparent in the next few days.  The surgeon said it could take a while for the eye and brain to adjust to the re-positioned eyeball, and if so, that's when we may detect some peripheral vision.  We will also have that eye evaluated to see if she might be a candidate for cataract surgery.

But for now ... well, we're clearly heartbroken.  We had hoped to give this sweet dog the gift of sight today.  It doesn't look like we succeeded.  But at least we tried.  And that's all we can do.

Thanks to all of you who have posted such wonderful, encouraging comments about Spinner's surgery.  I wish I could give you better news tonight.

We go back to see the eye surgeon in the morning for a follow-up, and then head to the airport for our flight to Seattle and then on to Missoula.

(I did not post photos of Spinner tonight because her eyes are bloody and look kind of icky.)