Rolling Dog Farm

Oscar Gets Checked Out

Today I took our three-legged boy, Cody, back to Dr. Bostwick in Missoula for his fifth round of chemo.  I also took Buzz and Birdie, our recent "I-can't-believe-I-ate-that!" cases, in to have the staples removed from their intestinal surgeries.  In addition, I brought along our deaf, old and mostly toothless miniature Dachshund, Oscar, so Dr. Dave could check him out.  About a week ago little Oscar began having some back problems, and we put him on prednisone after consulting with Dave.  That seemed to work, and he became mobile and active again.  He's had these episodes in the past and gets over them pretty quickly.

But he keeps his tail down all the time now, which is unusual, and from time to time he starts trembling ... not from fear or cold, but almost as if it's involuntary nerve action.  There seem to be no real triggers for it.  So we wanted Dave to take a look at Oscar today to see if he could pinpoint anything.

As it turned out, Dave couldn't find anything to explain it, and Oscar showed no neurological changes or any apparent problems with his spine.  In the photo Dave is pressing on Oscar's spine at specific points, looking for signs of discomfort.  He checked out Oscar's tail, lifting it up and moving it around, and again it didn't seem to bother him.  Yet once down on the floor and walking around, Oscar kept his tail down.  Odd, huh?

For now we will begin tapering Oscar off his prednisone and then see what happens once he's completely finished the course.

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I also picked up Spirit, the paralyzed Yorkie who arrived last Sunday, and brought her back home.  She seems to be doing fine.  Lori and Chad, who own Doggon' Wheels, are coming out to the ranch next Tuesday to personally measure Spirit for a wheelchair, so pretty soon she'll have a set of wheels!

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Power Dentistry

Our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, came out to the ranch this afternoon to do procedures on four of our blind  horses.  On the roster was Guadalupe, an old blind mare who arrived several weeks ago from Washington state.  We already knew her mouth was a mess and had scheduled a dental for her today.

But it wasn't until Bill got her sedated and her mouth opened up that we realized just how bad her teeth were.  He said it was clear she hadn't received any dental care in her entire life, and Bill estimated her age at the mid- to late-twenties.  Ouch.  She even had cuts and abrasions inside her cheeks and on the roof of her mouth.  It's amazing she could eat as well as she did.

I took this photo of Bill and his vet tech Lynn L. while Bill was using the power grinder on Guadalupe's bottom left row of teeth.  Bill's headgear holds the lamp that illuminates the inside of her mouth as he works.  Bill and Linda are wearing earmuffs because that power grinder makes a lot of noise!

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Hello, Sarah!

Here's our new employee, Sarah Gibson, on her first day at work.  Sarah replaced Kathryn, who left to go back to school for a pre-vet program.  Before joining us, Sarah had her own dog training business in Missoula and also worked for the Humane Society of Western Montana as their volunteer coordinator.  From 2001-2005 she was the instructor for the Humane Society's "Introduction to Dog Behavior" course offered to the public. 

Sarah is a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers  and was the 2006 recipient of the Association's ASPCA/Premier Staff Award.  She earned a B.A. in Anthropology from Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

True to form, Sarah got right to training today.  She and Mariah began teaching some of our dogs tracking skills this afternoon. This provides mental stimulation and enrichment, giving them focused activities to learn and pursue.  Sarah set up a 10-yard long beginner's course using 'sniffer' treats.  In this photo she has blind Emmy Lou working her way down the course -- you can see that nose at work!

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Spirit's Diagnosis

Our internal medicine specialist in Missoula, Dr. Dave Bostwick, called this afternoon with the results of his exam of Spirit, the Yorkie who arrived yesterday with paralyzed front legs.  (See post below.)

Her paralysis is from neurological disease, not from fractures or other trauma.  The disc spaces between the vertebrae in Spirit's neck have collapsed, and Dave described the bone density of her vertebrae as 'hyperdense,' suggesting she's been like this for a long time. 

Honestly, we are relieved to hear this diagnosis, because we feared her paralysis had been caused by physical abuse, given her history.

Spirit's respiratory problem is actually nasal and not in her lungs.  Dave said her mouth is full of rotting teeth, and she has fistulas (or channels) that have opened up between her mouth and nasal cavity.  This creates a pipeline for bacteria from the mouth, causing chronic infections.  So she will need dental work and some oral surgery to correct it.

Dave said there is no medical or surgical fix for her paralysis, so our next step is to get her a wheelchair.  We'll call our friends at Doggon' Wheels tomorrow to start the process.

To everyone who has written in with such wonderful thoughts and best wishes for this little girl, thank you!  We'll keep you posted!

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Broken In Body, Big In Spirit

This is a true story.  I wish it weren't. 

A couple of days ago in Butte, Montana, a lady named Denise S. saw a little Yorkshire Terrier in the street.  As cars whizzed by, she dashed out to rescue the dog.  Suddenly she saw a man by the Yorkie, kicking it.  Denise ran up, grabbed the dog off the pavement, and clutched it tight.  The man was drunk.  He said to Denise, "That's my dog!"  Then he walked away.

The tiny dog was filthy, its fur matted and its eyes crusted over.  But that wasn't the worst of it.  The Yorkie's two front legs were paralyzed.  She couldn't walk.  But she tried anyway, propelling herself with her back legs, only to fall on her chin.  Then she would push off again.  It was heartbreaking to watch. 

Denise took the dog to a vet clinic, where they clipped her, cleaned her eyes and ears, and started her on some eye medication.  The vet wasn't sure what had happened to the dog's legs.  I can only imagine.

Denise called us yesterday, told us about the dog, and asked if we could take her.  We didn't hesitate.  Denise's parents drove the Yorkie up to us today.  They were already taken with this amazing little girl. 

We found her legs knuckle over at the same spot on each limb, and there's no reflex at all.  It's not like they're lifeless, because they don't flop around, but they're stiff.  It's very odd.  She's been like this for quite some time, judging from the bald spots and wear marks on her legs.

I took the photos this evening in our Welcome Center.  In the second photo she's trying to walk off the dog bed, and you see what happens -- she just falls forward.  You can see her front feet sticking out underneath her rear end.  But she'll pick herself up and try again.  She has enough pep that when we took her outside, she barked at all the dogs by the house, and she was fascinated to see the horses in the corrals across the drive.  She clearly wanted to go explore!

She has a respiratory problem of some sort ... very slurpy, congested breathing ... which concerned us as well.  We had some volunteers here from Seattle this weekend, and they were heading back to Missoula this evening, so they're dropping her off at the emergency clinic for the night.  We want to make sure her respiratory issue is treated right away.  Our internal medicine specialist in Missoula, Dr. Dave Bostwick, will do a complete examination tomorrow.

If her front-leg paralysis is not medically or surgically correctable -- and I bet it isn't -- we still have the option of a wheelchair.  Our friends at Doggon' Wheels in Bozeman, Montana, have a front-wheel drive wheelchair for dogs with this kind of problem.  Since the flooring in our house is entirely linoleum, and she's so small, she would be able to cruise around just fine.

Oh.  We named her Spirit.

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Cody's Chemotherapy

This is three-legged Cody, our new arrival we were keeping 'under wraps' until the fall newsletter came out, getting his weekly chemotherapy treatment today.  (Because of an emergency with Cody last week -- see our post Medical Disaster Day -- he's now out of the closet, so to speak, although we won't reveal his entire story until the next newsletter!)  In the photo is our internal medicine specialist in Missoula, Dr. Dave Bostwick, and his vet tech Tracy, giving Cody his chemo via an IV.

Cody would probably prefer that I keep this particular medical problem IN the closet.  He turned out to have an extremely rare cancer called a 'transmissible venereal tumor,' or TVT.  A little embarrassing, actually.  Imagine a red, fleshy, bloody growth resembling a small cauliflower ... deep inside the sheath at the base of the penis.  Now, notice the word "transmissible."  Yep.  Seems you can actually catch this cancer fooling around with your friends.  Uh oh. 

How rare is this?  Dave said that in all his years as a specialist -- and oncology is one of his areas -- he's never seen it, except in vet school.  Dave said one of his veterinary medicine professors had studied this particular cancer.  The professor learned that by simply grinding up the tumor into a slurry and injecting it under the skin of other dogs, it was possible to grow the tumor in those animals.  It's that transmissible. 

When Dave diagnosed this a few weeks ago, our first thought was about the rest of our dogs here, but Dave assured us that unless we saw Cody "engaged" with any of them, they weren't at risk.  Not only is Cody now neutered, but his remaining back leg is so compromised he physically couldn't conduct any risky business anyway.  We've never even seen him try.

The good news is that this tumor is completely treatable with chemotherapy.  Cody is about half-way through his 6-week course of chemo, and the tumor is already about 90% shrunk.

Sometimes we see the strangest medical conditions here at the Rolling Dog Ranch.  Who knew?

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Brain Food

Mariah's been working on enrichment activities for some of the dogs here who need more outlets for their energy.  One of them is blind Luke.  As Mariah says, 15 minutes of mental exercise can be worth as much as an hour of physical exercise, and it doesn't take much to give those doggie brains a simple workout.

For instance, rather than just let Luke vacuum his food in 7 seconds, Mariah bought a "Molecuball" treat dispenser toy, filled it with his kibble, and turned him loose.  Now he has to work to get his dinner, turning and flipping the ball until kibble comes out, making it a mentally stimulating game.  I took the photo of Luke with his blue Molecuball in his crate this evening.

To show you how he does it, Mariah and I put Luke in another open crate with his Molecuball and shot about 40 seconds of video. (The squeaking sound in the background is one of the two ventilators on the Widget's House roof that needs to be replaced.)  It may not look like much is going on, but it keeps this boy occupied and mentally focused ... for a while, at least!

Claude Goes Back To The Clinic

When we had Claude the blind Great Dane puppy neutered a week ago, our internal medicine specialist in Helena, Dr. Britt Culver, also did an innovative surgery called 'laparosopic gastropexy.'

Our only hesitation in agreeing to take Claude was because Great Danes are at high risk for bloat, which is often life-threatening.  Bloat occurs when the stomach twists, and the condition requires immediate medical intervention to save the animal.  Well, we're more than an hour from the nearest vet clinic, and with Danes having a one-in-four chance of suffering bloat, it was a risk that worried us a lot.

So when our primary care vet in Helena, Dr. Brenda Culver, told us that Britt (her husband) was now doing this new minimally invasive surgery to prevent bloat, we didn't hesitate.  The surgery requires only two small incisions, and a lighted scope with a tiny camera allows the surgeon to operate inside the body, where the right side of the stomach is tacked to the abdominal wall.  That prevents the stomach from twisting.  For more information on this procedure, see this page.

The surgery went well, but yesterday Claude blew out some of the sutures from one of the incision sites.  Before we realized it, he had started licking at it, causing the incision site to become infected.  I put an e-collar on him yesterday afternoon, and this morning I called Britt to tell him what had happened. 

Then Claude and I hit the road to Helena, so Britt could examine the incision and decide on the best course of treatment.  I took this photo of Britt with Claude in the clinic's waiting room.  We're adding a second antibiotic to the one Claude's already on, and we'll need to clean out the incision site for the next few days, but Britt is confident it will clear up pretty soon.

We are incredibly lucky to have two board-certified internal medicine specialists for our animals.  Dr. Dave Bostwick in Missoula was our specialist in Seattle when we lived there, and it was Dave who told us about Britt when we first moved to Montana.  That's how we came to use Britt and Brenda as our main veterinary clinic -- and six years later, we still do.  Then Dave moved to Missoula a couple of years ago (small world!), so now we have both of these fabulous specialists about an hour away in either direction.

The reason having board-certified internal medicine specialists is so important to us is because they bring an advanced level of knowledge to the practice of veterinary medicine -- typically four years more schooling than a regular vet.  To be certified by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, a veterinarian must have four years of advanced training beyond veterinary school and take two separate board examinations.  To pass the exams, the veterinarian must demonstrate proficiency in all areas of internal medicine, including cardiology, neurology, and oncology. For more information on internal medicine specialists, go here.

So these internists are at the leading-edge of veterinary medicine, and with the kinds of disabilities and other medical issues our animals have, having them on our veterinary team sure gives us peace of mind.

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Clean-Up Crew

Travis, our dog with a fused jaw, eats a special blended liquid diet that he slurps up.  Now, as you can imagine, Travis leaves one heck of a mess behind.  The food is everywhere -- in his crate, on his bedding, on the crate door, even on the floor outside the crate. 

We have the antidote to the mess:  Libby, our clean-up crew.  She is one of our original Seattle dogs, who moved to Montana with us in 2000.  Libby had been the victim of two separate animal cruelty cases back in Washington.  Animal control officers in Shelton, Washington, rescued her from the first situation when she was a puppy, but their shelter inadvertently adopted her out to another family that did the same thing to her.  Libby was nearly lifeless when they found her again.  Both cases were prosecuted.  Not wanting to adopt out Libby locally again, the shelter asked if we would take her. 

As you can see from her ample waistline, Libby hasn't missed a meal since.  She is on a strict diet and she does get plenty of exercise, but plump seems to be her 'natural' weight.  (Or so we tell ourselves.)

Libby does love to eat, of course, and one of her treats is to clean up after Travis has finished eating.  By the time she gets done, the entire mess is gone.  She's also very detail-oriented (this is important if you're the clean-up crew), so she makes sure she gets the tough spots, too, like the corners of the crate door.

Nice job, Libby!

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No Kidding: The Blind Leading The Blind

Our blind two-year Nikki has now graduated from the round pen to riding in the pasture, and today was her second day at it.  Our horse trainer, Nichole Zupan, thought it would be beneficial for Nikki to follow another horse during these first few open riding sessions, so I rode blind Domino the Appaloosa while she followed on Nikki.  Alayne took this photo of us riding this morning. 

Ironically, Alayne had intended to use one of our sighted horses, Rocco, as the lead horse for Nikki, but he proved to need some work of his own.  Yes, folks, it was easier to use a blind horse!  So here's a real-life example of the blind leading the blind.  In this case, it turned out well!

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