Rolling Dog Farm

The 4th Annual Quilt Raffle!

For the fourth year in a row, Barbara Edwards, a quiltmaker from Seeley Lake, Montana, has generously offered to make another beautiful quilt for us and raffle it off, with 100% of the proceeds going to the animals at the ranch.

Barbara and her husband Scott came by yesterday afternoon to show us her latest quilt.  I took the photo of Barbara and Scott in our welcome center.  (Alayne belongs to the mysterious fingers holding up the quilt in the middle.)

The dimensions are 60" x 70".  This year's quilt is called 'Deputy Dogs' ... and you can see why!

Here's a close-up of the quilt detail:

The raffle details are:

-- Tickets available for $5 each ... and this year there's no limit to the number of tickets!

-- Make your check payable to Barbara Edwards

-- Please send your check directly to Barbara Edwards, P.O. Box 104, Seeley Lake, Montana, 59868

-- Barbara will fill out the raffle ticket stub with the information you send with your check ... please make sure she has your full name, address and phone number

-- If you want your portion of the ticket(s) mailed back to you, please send Barbara a stamped, self-addressed envelope

-- All tickets must be purchased by July 15, 2009

-- In addition to posting the raffle on the blog, Barbara will be displaying the quilt and selling tickets at three venues in nearby communities

-- The drawing will be held at the ranch shortly after July 15 and the winner will be announced on the blog as well as notified personally

Note that Alayne and I are not handling the raffle, so please don't send any money for tickets to the ranch.

There you go ... Deputy Dogs!  (Or to be more hip, maybe we should say "Deputy Dogz"?)

Thank you, Barbara!

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Don't forget, you can vote every day for us in The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  Invite your family and friends to vote, too! 

Snowy Play Session

We had a light snowfall overnight (yes, I know it's May 13th but what the heck) and because we've had bare ground for a few weeks now, the snow was just enough to get the dogs feeling frisky this morning.  Alayne got this shot of blind Austin and deaf Stuart playing with each other soon after she let them out of their cottage.  There's something about seeing animals with two totally different disabilities roughhousing with each other that is so heartwarming.  That's Austin on the left and Stuart on the right.

These two Beagles were providing some entertainment for the other dogs, and here is Daisy watching the boys go at it:

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Don't forget, you can vote every day for us in The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  Invite your family and friends to vote, too! 

One correction to what I posted this morning:  If we hold on to the No. 3 spot for the duration of the contest and win the third-prize of $3,000, we would not get the $1,000 prize for winning the most votes in Montana.  The state prize would go to the runner-up for Montana.  Thanks to Heidi for pointing this out in her blog comment.  I'm married to an attorney, you think she would have read the actual contest rules for me, right?  Sheesh!

Up To No. 3 And $1,000 Weekly Winner!

Last night we learned the ranch had won $1,000 as the "weekly winner" in the Animal Rescue Site's Shelter Challenge contest, and this morning we had moved up to No. 3 nationwide!  Fabulous!  Thank you for all your daily voting for the animals here -- it is clearly adding up and making a difference!  If we can hold the No. 3 spot till the end of the contest in July, we would win the third-place prize of $3,000 plus the $1,000 for the top vote-getter in the state of Montana.  (Not to mention the $1,000 weekly prize we just won!)

Please keep voting -- and invite your friends and family to vote, too. Here's the link again for the The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge page.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.

Thank you!

No, He's Not Another New Beagle!

Here's a little guy you haven't seen in a while -- blind Austin, a Beagle who arrived from Georgia last year.  Alayne got this photo of Austin on Sunday, while he was out exploring in the yard.  (Look how that grass is starting to grow!) 

Austin is like everybody’s kid brother, always tagging along behind the other dogs hoping they'll play with him.  We’ll often see him in the yard, eagerly following other dogs as they walk around.  He has this very expectant look on his face, as if he thinks they’re going to lead him to something fun and exciting -- or better yet, they’re finally going to turn around and start roughhousing with him. 

He has a loud, deep baying voice that is way too big for his little body.  We watch him bay and wonder, “Where is all that noise coming from?”  He’ll use his big hound dog voice to good effect, too.  For example, if he wants to play and his chosen playmate isn’t game, Austin will sit and stare at the other dog, baying and baying until his pal gives in and begins playing with him.  And they will, just to shut him up!

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Don't forget, you can vote every day for us in The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  We won $1,000 in this online contest last year because of your help and would like to win it again this year.

We're on a roll -- still at No. 4 nationwide, so please keep voting!  Thank you!

And Back To Work She Goes

It took Callie a little while on Friday evening to re-orient herself after coming home ... when you're blind, have been away for three weeks in the hospital, and have some new vestibular problems that keep you off-balance, well, it can take a bit to figure out where everything is again.  So she kind of milled around her first night back and seemed occasionally lost.

Late Saturday morning, however, we saw her on the cot in the living room, earnestly licking the pillow that's supposed to be inside the bumper bed that blind Charlie likes so much.  This, we knew, was a very good sign.  She was getting ready to re-open her grooming salon, and she was just practicing on the pillow as a warm-up session.

Sure enough, a few hours later on Saturday afternoon, I heard the distinctive sounds of Callie grooming one of her many clients just outside my office door.  I turned around to look, and there she was, methodically grooming blind Briggs.  Back and forth she went with her tongue, carefully cleaning his neck and face.  (If you click on the photo for a larger image, you can see her little pink tongue sticking out.)

I thought, bless her heart, she circles when she walks and her head tilts sideways, but she can pull herself together enough to start grooming again.  Briggs, her favorite client, was only wondering, "Where have you been for the last three weeks, honey?"

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Don't forget, you can vote every day for us in The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  We won $1,000 in this online contest last year because of your help and would like to win it again this year.

We're on a roll -- still at No. 4 nationwide, so please keep voting!  Thank you!

Callie Checks Out Of The Hospital

I picked up blind Callie at the WSU teaching hospital on Friday morning and brought her back to the ranch.  I took these photos just before we left the hospital.  In the photo above, Callie is being held by Sarah P., the 4th year vet student who was Callie's case manager for the past couple of weeks.  Sarah is graduating this week and is now officially a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, so Callie was her last case at the university.  Everyone fell in love with Callie during her long stay at the hospital, Sarah among them! 

Callie had her last radiation dose Friday morning while Sarah and Dr. Fidel, the oncologist, were walking me through her discharge paperwork and instructions for follow-up care.  Callie hadn't eaten yet because of the anesthesia, so after the radiation technician brought Callie out to me, Sarah served Callie her breakfast on the lawn:

The bandanna around her neck was given to her by the WSU staff, and it says "I'm a cancer survivor":

Because of the serious ear infection she developed while she was in the hospital, her left ear drum is ruptured and her vestibular system is consequently "off," so she has a pronounced head tilt and does some circling:

But the good news is that she is finally responding to the medication and her symptoms have improved significantly from just a week ago.  The head tilt and circling will continue to diminish.  The WSU team thinks the ear infection may have developed because the prednisone she's been on for several weeks has suppressed her immune system.  Callie is still on a low dose of the pred but will finally be weaned off over the next couple of weeks as the tumor shrinks from the radiation.  Dr. Fidel explained that these menigiomas are very slow-growing tumors and consequently take a long time to die off -- about three weeks after the radiation treatments are over.

Nevertheless, Callie is still a happy little girl who continues to have a terrific appetite and who still loves to roll around on her back in the grass:

Thanks again to everyone who made such generous gifts to Callie's medical fund.  Her total bill came to $4,653.77, all of it paid for by your donations!  Thank you so much!

Callie and I got back to the ranch Friday afternoon, and it didn't take her long to settle back into her routine here ... as you'll see in tomorrow's blog post!

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Don't forget, you can vote every day for us in The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  We won $1,000 in this online contest last year because of your help and would like to win it again this year.

We're on a roll -- up to No. 4 nationwide this weekend, so please keep voting!  Thank you!

Callie's Coming Home!

I'm in Pullman, Washington, tonight, and will be picking up blind Callie from Washington State University's veterinary teaching hospital tomorrow morning and taking her back to the ranch.  Callie will have her last -- and 18th -- radiation treatment at 8 a.m. Friday, and she'll be ready to be discharged an hour later.  We can't wait to have her home!  I will post a homecoming photo and update on Callie on the blog for Monday morning.  Until then, thank you all for your kind thoughts and generous gifts for Callie's treatment!

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Don't forget, you can vote every day for us in The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  We won $1,000 in this online contest last year because of your help and would like to win it again this year.

Wow!  We moved up to No. 5 nationwide today, so please keep voting!  Thank you!

Peek-A-Boo

Alayne saw a shape moving inside a round bed in the living room yesterday afternoon, so she stopped and said, "Who's in there?"  Immediately there was the sound of a small animate object scurrying forward and then out popped little Daisy's head.  Then Daisy disappeared back into the bed. 

Alayne went to get the camera, came back, got the shot above of the lump under the cover, and then called out again, "Who's in there?"  A couple of seconds later, here came Daisy once more:

Now, please note that this otherwise fine bed was designed for dogs to sleep on top of it, not inside it.  But obviously some small, scurrying creatures with sharp teeth (rats?  Dachshunds?) had other ideas on how best to use it.

Could this be the original Hide-A-Bed?

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Don't forget, you can vote every day for us in The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  We won $1,000 in this online contest last year because of your help and would like to win it again this year.

We're still at No. 6 nationwide today, so please keep voting!  Thank you!

Blind Charlie At The Vet

I took our new arrival, blind Charlie, to our vet clinic in Helena today for an eye exam and general medical check-up.  (I also had the studded snow tires taken off the truck and horse trailer.  Uh oh.)  In the photo above, our vet Dr. Brenda Culver is using the slit lamp to look into his eyes while vet tech Maddy S. holds Charlie.

We had noticed when we took photos of Charlie last week for the blog that he reacted to the flash of the camera, as if the light startled him.  At first I thought it might be the noise of the shutter clicking, but then I manually held the flash down, clicked away, and he didn't react at all.  I popped the flash up again, shot some more, and he reacted each time to the burst of light.  I mentioned it to Brenda before she did the eye exam, because that indicated to us that he had some retinal function.

Sure enough, Brenda found he has a very good PLR, or pupillary light reflex, which means the pupil constricts in response to light .. .which means the retina is detecting the light coming in.  His eye pressures were normal, so there's no indication of glaucoma.  And his eyes otherwise looked very comfortable, except for the thick cataracts.  Charlie may be a candidate for an electroretinagram, or ERG, which would tell us how well his retinas are firing.

If the retinas are working fine, then he might be a candidate for cataract surgery -- and that could restore his vision.  That's a still a big "if," because our veterinary ophthalmologist in Spokane, Washington, told us years ago that only about 50% of the dogs he sees with cataracts turn out to be candidates for surgery because their retinas just aren't working well enough.  So it's far too soon to get our hopes up.

At this point Brenda will be consulting with our ophthalmologist on the next steps, and we'll post an update when we have one.

Here's Charlie looking for cookies on the counter in the exam room:

You can see in this shot just how skinny he is:

And here he is, listening to all the noises on the other side of the exam room door:

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Update on Callie:  Blind Callie is still at WSU's veterinary teaching hospital and just had her 15th radiation treatment.  She had been doing well until last Thursday, when she developed an infection in her left ear that would not respond to treatment, no matter what her doctors there tried.  A couple of days ago she developed neurological problems as a result of it becoming an inner ear problem, and she began circling and tilting her head.  This was, needless to say, alarming to them and to us.  However, as of yesterday they think she is finally beginning to respond to a new treatment and her neuro signs have diminished.  She is no longer circling but only has a head tilt.

The hospital staff do not think the ear problem is related to the radiation itself -- it's her left ear and the radiation is targeted on the right front side of her brain -- but Callie's oncologist may repeat the MRI this week just to rule out anything else.  That will depend on how much progress Callie makes by tomorrow.  But otherwise she is eating and drinking normally, and she loves being held and carried around by the staff.  If all goes well, I will be picking her up this Friday and bringing her back to the ranch.

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Don't forget, you can vote every day for us in The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  We won $1,000 in this online contest last year because of your help and would like to win it again this year.

We moved up to No. 6 nationwide today, so please keep voting!  Thank you!

Kicking Up Their Heels

On Saturday morning Alayne and I turned Lena, Nikki and Cash out to pasture so we could muck out their corral with the tractor.  This was the first time they've been on pasture since last fall.  We don't typically turn them out until Memorial Day weekend at the end of May because the grass hasn't grown enough to support sustained grazing until then.  That's when grazing season starts.  May is a frustrating month because they're so ready to be out on pasture, we're so ready to stop feeding hay, and there is some fresh green grass out there -- they know it, too! -- but we have to be careful to give the grass a chance to really grow before it gets serious grazing pressure. 

But oh my, were these three blind horses excited about being turned loose!  I figured we might have some rodeo-like theatrics, so I had the camera with me.  And they didn't disappoint.  There is usually a lot of bucking and kicking and hi-jinks when we first put them out.  That's Nikki kicking up her heels in the photo above.

Here she is again, really putting some "ooomph!" into it as she kicks to the right:

And then, for good measure, a kick to the left:

Not to be outdone, here's Cash getting into the action:

(The light looks so different in that shot because I now have the sun behind me as I'm taking the photos.  In Nikki's photos I was facing into the morning sun, which kind of gave it that washed-out look.)

Lastly, here's a shot of all three of them getting airborne:



If you were just driving by and watching these three horses act like this, you'd never in a million years guess that they're all totally blind.

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Don't forget, you can vote every day for us in The Animal Rescue Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana, and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  We won $1,000 in this online contest last year because of your help and would like to win it again this year. 

We slipped to No. 8 nationwide today from No. 7, so please keep voting!  Thank you!