Rolling Dog Farm

Hello Up There!

We were letting the dogs out of the cottages for their mid-day run-around and play session, and deaf Stuart offered us his usual greeting.  (I happened to have the camera with me, which is how I got these shots.  That's Alayne's boot on the right.)  He races over to one of us, stands on his hind legs with his front paws on our thighs, and looks right up.  Then, he tosses his head back and forth, left and right, like this:

And this:

You can see from his flying ears how fast he was whipping his head around.  Finally, satisfied he's made an appropriate impression, he lets loose with a wild Beagle howl.  It is an ear-splitting howl, so I usually have to put a finger up to my mouth and say "Shhhhhh!"  I'm not sure he's quite figured out what that hand signal is all about, but we're working on it!

Feline Contemplation

Alayne and I were heading out of Lena's Barn after finishing afternoon chores the other day when I saw one of our barn cats, Spark, sitting on a fencepost and contemplating the beautiful scenery in front of her.  At least that's what I'd like to think she was doing.  Alayne thinks she was more likely scanning for mice for a quick snack.  But I'm sticking with my meditative thesis. 

Amazingly, Spark stayed on the fencepost long enough for me to sprint to the house and come back with the camera.

Spark was "presented" to us by Cinder, a blind cat we had taken in at the request of a shelter here in Montana.  Neither the shelter nor we knew Cinder was pregnant when she arrived at the ranch, so when Cinder started looking like she had swallowed a balloon, we knew something was up!

While Cinder is happily living in the cat house, Spark spends her days wandering the ranch, going from barn to barn, hunting mice and being a brat with the other barn cats.  But occasionally she likes to take a quiet moment to reflect on the state of the world.

Ah, Now This Is The Life

One year ago today, Briggs arrived from a rescue group in Georgia.  He was blind and wobbly, and his eyes bulged from runaway glaucoma.  They hurt so much he constantly rubbed them with his paws.  Before we could do eye surgery to relieve the pain, our vets found he also had a kidney disease ... and then they found he also had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.  He had never received medical treatment for any of those conditions, and our internal medicine specialist thinks the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever was the underlying cause of all of Briggs' other problems.

After repeated visits to our vet hospital, surgery, and lots of follow-up medical care, little Briggs became a new dog.  Well, except for the fact that he's still blind and yes, wobbly!  But what a turnaround in his life.  Today he celebrated his one-year anniversary at the ranch by sleeping in and then having his personal groomer, Miss Callie, stop by for a spa session.  Alayne got this shot of blind Callie giving him a facial massage this afternoon.  You can just see him thinking, "This I could get used to."

Pssst! Guess What?

I got this photo yesterday of wobbly Soba and blind Helen.  It sure looks like Soba was whispering some kind of secret into Helen's ear, doesn't it?

I was facing into the sun with the camera, and with the bright snow and the big black dog ... well, the camera couldn't figure out how to balance the color contrast.  I tried to fix it using my Mac's photo editing software but it still looks a bit odd. 

You can see Soba's wide stance with both her front legs and back legs -- that's a classic posture for a dog with cerebellar hypoplasia.  Soba rarely falls down because she is so good at keeping her feet so far apart for stability.

You may recall that dear Helen had to have a rear leg removed for cancer last year.  Already blind, she struggled for a while adapting to being three-legged -- I think not being able to see made maintaining her sense of balance much more difficult -- yet she's finally got it mastered. 

I don't know what secret Soba was sharing, but Helen seemed a bit dubious about the source.

Thanks For The Head Rest

Alayne and I were over at Beauty's Barn this morning when we looked across and saw blind Luna appearing to rest her head on a snowbank while she snoozed.  We stood and watched, and indeed, that's what she was doing.  Because of recent days in the 30s and nights in single-digits (this morning it was 0 degrees when we headed out to do chores), that drift has a thick layer of crusty snow that's as hard as ice.

Luna was in the classic equine sleeping-while-standing mode where they're dozing but conscious of their surroundings.  Her ears swiveled back in my direction when she heard me approach with the camera.  The snowbank was just the perfect height as a prop for her chin.  From Beauty's Barn I could see indentations in the snow where the combination of the weight from her head and the warmth from her breathing had left "muzzle prints."

I walked out across the snow -- yes, it was so crusty I stayed on top -- to get a closer shot, and here's what it looked like:

  

Usually when a horse like Luna sleeps standing up, she'll let her head hang down at about chest height -- but apparently she found this posture much more comfortable!

Our Dual Minion

Lots of folks have been asking us how our latest arrival, Dexter T. Dickens, is doing.  He's great!  This little tyke has absolutely captured our hearts -- he is a pure joy and delight to have in our lives.  I told one of the sanctuary's wonderful friends in Chicago this morning that Dexter is one of those once-in-a-lifetime dogs.  And he is a dickens.  Alayne's choice of names was perfect.

Alayne had been hoping for another Oscar, her uber-minion, but it turns out Dexter is a dual minion!  He loves both of us equally, and he is always running back and forth to check on each of us.  In fact, after his first couple of weeks here, he ended up as a "cottage dog" at night for that very reason.

We were letting him sleep in the living room, but every night about 2:30 a.m. he'd knock down the child-gate in the hallway and march into our bedroom to see if we were still okay.  He'd come over to my side of the bed first, stand up on his hind legs to see if I'm there, then scurry over to Alayne's side of the bed to determine her whereabouts.  One of us would have to get up, take him back down to the living room, and put the child-gate back up.

At 5:30 a.m. he'd do the same thing.  Crash goes the gate, here comes the pitter-patter of tiny feet down the hall, then the inspection tour of the bedroom.

Somehow the child-gate manages to block Labs, Rottweilers, and Huskies but, um, not a determined miniature Dachshund.

So now he sleeps in the cottage, and he's not too happy about it, but at least we're sleeping through the night again!

(I'm a very light sleeper so the bedroom is a dog-free zone at night.)

In the morning, if I'm the one who lets him out of the cottage, he zooms into the house and races from room to room looking for Alayne.  He jumps up and down at her feet, licks and wags, and then races back to me for some licks and wags.  If Alayne is the one who lets him out in the morning, he's not content until he finds me.  He just needs to make sure we're both present and accounted for.

And whenever one of us leaves the house, he gets restless and worried -- standing up and anxiously looking out the windows for us -- until we come back.  He wants us to be together at all times.

Early on we discovered he loves to sit up when he really, really wants something ... like our lunch.  That's what he's doing in the photo at the top of the post.  Hard to resist that, isn't it?  Somewhere he learned it was irresistible.

Being a Dachshund, he does love to burrow -- even if it means just getting partially wrapped in a chore-jacket he pulled down off the the couch:

But he's also a little guy who likes to perch up high ... whether it's on a stack of freshly laundered bedding or the back of the couch:

This is actually a problem because he has no inhibition about jumping down -- which is how Dachshunds often end up with spine problems in the first place.  Despite his age, Dexter is a very athletic guy with lots of energy, and he's always zooming around and climbing up on things.  Thus whenever we see him like this, we pick him up and set him down on a bed on the floor.  We'd like to have at least one miniature Dachshund who doesn't have a spinal or orthopedic disability!

She's Due Here Any Second. I Just Know It.

Cindy got this shot of some of the dogs at Widget's House waiting for her to take them inside for dinner.  They have this uncanny sense of timing, and pretty much know when she's due to show up at that gate.  From the left is old Miss Samantha, then the Poodle sisters Priscilla and Molly, then Jake, then that two-timing hound dog from Louisiana, Trooper, and finally the big girl, Blanca.  Except Trooper, all are blind, while Blanca is blind-and-deaf.  However, none of their disabilities keep them from a) knowing how to tell time and b) knowing where the gate is that Cindy comes through every evening on her way to Widget's House.

There Isn't Much Bare Ground But I Found It

Bare ground is a rare and coveted thing at the ranch in February.  You can usually find it only right next to building walls that are facing south (at least until a new snowstorm fills it all in again).  I went out just now to put the dogs back up in the cottages for the afternoon and found wobbly Soba had found her patch of bare ground next to Keisha's Cottage.  She had been sunning herself there for her mid-day lunch break.  Her sister Noodle was not too far away, also enjoying the sun.

It may not look like Soba is very far down, but here's another perspective:

Of course, for a wobbler it's very easy to wobble your way down into that spot to catch some rays, but another thing to be able to get back out on your own.  Which is why the ranch provides dogs like Soba with helpful lift-and-carry machines called humans.

Bunny In Her New Home

You may remember that back in August, our beautiful three-legged cat Bunny was adopted by Karl and Tia M. from the Spokane, Washington, area.  Tia just sent us an email about Bunny this weekend with these photos.

Tia wrote, "Thought I would give you an update on Bunny ... she has fit into our family like she was born here. We have grown to love her so much, we can't imagine not having her in our home.  Thank you for making that happen and giving her a second chance at a good life.  I included some photos for you to see. As you can see, Bunny still knows how to relax!"

I presume there's a body attached to the head in this next photo!

 

And finally:

Stylish

Alayne got these photos a couple of days ago of Daisy with her stylish, wind-swept look.  Since there was no wind in the house, and Stuart the deaf Beagle hadn't been cleaning her ears, I have no idea how she managed to do this.  But evidently she thought it was quite special.

Here's the top-down view:

Somehow this brings to mind the Verizon Wireless slogan, "Can you hear me now?"