Rolling Dog Farm

Christmas Bootie

On Saturday morning, as we were taking horses out to pasture, we found blind Rosie could barely walk.  She looked so painful we suspected she was beginning to founder, a terrible and often life-threatening condition in which the coffin bone in the hoof rotates downwards.  Rosie has always had foot problems; she has very thin soles, so she has had to wear shoes, boots, and pads at various times, and requires special trimming.  After cleaning her hooves to make sure there wasn't a stone or pebble lodged inside that might be bruising her soles, I took her heart rate (elevated) and temperature (elevated), and then called our new equine vet, Dr. Steve Levine at Northern Equine.  

Steve happened to be out on Saturday rounds that morning and was over here a short while later.  After doing an initial exam, he ruled out founder and believed she might have an abscess in her left front foot.  But at first there was no visible sign of an abscess.  After paring back her hoof tissue, though, Steve found it -- and that was a relief.  The last thing we wanted was a case of founder.  

Once he drained and treated the abscess, he proceeded to wrap her foot.  When he got done, I looked down and saw Rosie was now wearing a beautiful bandage in perfect Santa colors!  Out of season, perhaps, but very stylish nonetheless!

30,000 Pounds Later

Alayne took this photo of me bringing out the very last item from the moving van that arrived on Friday.  This was the snowplow, which was strapped onto a pallet that I'm lifting with the pallet forks on the tractor's front loader.  I wish I had thought about taking a "before" photo, but when the driver opened the back door -- very slowly and carefully, because Alayne said she had crammed that van full all the way to the doors -- I looked up and the last thing I was thinking about was getting a photo.  I was thinking, oh my Lord, how much is in there?  Well, according to the weigh station's record, the driver said there was 30,000 pounds (13,608 kg) of stuff. 

We had arranged with MTS Freight in Helena for the moving vans, and I would like to say they were fabulous to work with.  We clearly did not have a typical household move, nor could we simply have a team of movers show up one day, pack everything, load it in a van and drive off.  That's because most of it was not the kind of stuff that would fit neatly into moving boxes, and also because we had to stage the move to time it with the shipment of the animals.  So some stuff we could pack ahead of time, other stuff had to wait until the animals left.  MTS Freight was very flexible and accommodating, willing to work around our unique needs and schedule.  They dropped the first moving van at the ranch back in early May, left it there for us to load over the space of a few weeks, then came back to pick it up when it was full and dropped off the second van.  (Yes, we have one more van coming!)  Then they were willing to hold on to both vans until Alayne could get out to New Hampshire to be here to help me unload.

MTS Freight contracted with an independent driver to bring the van out, and here again we were very fortunate -- and grateful.  Dave H., who you see in the photo directing me as I guide the pallet forks in, offered to help us unload ... and he spent the rest of the day working side-by-side with us.  This was not part of his job at all -- he was contracted by MTS only to deliver the van -- but he was kind enough to spend the day helping to schlep stuff from the van.  We had an 8' x 4' platform for the pallet forks that we used to ferry the loose items from the van to the barn and house; the big things, like the snowplow, were already on pallets.

Now, I know many folks will wonder why we didn't hire a bunch of high school kids or round up some new volunteers to help unload.  The reason is liability.  If someone had fallen off the back of that van, for instance, we would have been liable.  In Montana, we had a worker's comp policy that covered volunteers; we don't have that policy in place yet here (it's in process).  And waivers aren't sufficient; you can't waive your health insurer's right to sue someone else to recover the cost of medical care, for instance.  Unfortunately, in today's litigious society, it's not worth taking the risk if you don't have the insurance in place.  (As an independent owner/operator who delivered the load, Dave was in a different position.)

Once we got underway, we also realized there was only really enough room for the three of us inside the van anyway; any more people and we would have been elbowing each other out of the way!

It was 7 p.m. when we finally finished, and this was a welcome sight indeed:

Wet

One of the reasons we were attracted to New Hampshire was because of the green, lush climate.  But even so, I've been surprised at how often my Davis wireless weather station registers humidity readings in the high 90s ... frequently at 99%, or like this morning when I took this photo, at 98%.  And it wasn't raining, either!  After a decade in the arid Rocky Mountains, this is a very nice change.  The humidity, combined with all the vegetation -- especially all the ferns around the property -- actually remind us of our original home in Seattle.

Just to be clear, it wasn't 5:48 a.m. when I took that photo -- we had a power outage yesterday and I haven't reset the time on the weather station.  It was a more reasonable 7:48 a.m.  Nor have I re-connected the weather station to the Web yet (technical reasons), so the Weatherlink site will continue to show you the reading for May 16th in Ovando. 

In any case, we are enjoying this wet climate!

And Finally...

Yes, she finally made it!  I took this photo of Alayne arriving here yesterday evening.  It had been a month since I'd last seen her!  The truck and horse trailer are stuffed with all the last things to leave -- household goods, dog stuff, and speaking of dogs, five dogs.  No rest for the weary, though -- today we will unload the truck and trailer (um, we did let the five dogs out yesterday!), then get ready for the first of two moving vans that will arrive on Friday.  So we are a long way from being settled, but for now at least, "the pack" is complete!

When You Find Yourself In A Hole, Keep Digging

I took this photo of blind Austin the other evening in one of the dog yards.  Even before we moved in, there had been a rather sizable hole in the ground where this particular yard is located. Oddly, no one seemed to pay it any attention, and I never saw any dog actually in it.  Until Thursday evening that is, when I found Austin had not only appropriated the hole for himself, but dug it even deeper.  The hole was now as deep as he is tall.  Apparently the old line that advises, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging," does not apply to Beagles.

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Alayne is finally on her way!  She will be in South Bend, Indiana tonight and arriving here on Tuesday.  That's a day later than we had hoped, but she is making her way to New Hampshire!

Timmy and Levi

Our longtime and wonderful volunteer from Helena, Laura W., just emailed me a link to this YouTube video of Timmy and Levi, the two disabled dogs she adopted from us, playing together.  Timmy is the one whose front leg we recently amputated, and Levi is blind.  There's always something especially heartwarming watching two disabled animals play together, but in a way it's even more so when they have different disabilities.  In this case, Levi is a much bigger dog but middle-aged, and it looks to me in the end that Timmy's youthful exuberance and energy on three legs wore down his older friend on four legs ... at least judging from how Levi finally headed for the stairs!  (And notice how Levi knew exactly where those stairs were?)

Thank you, Laura, for adopting both of these special boys!

Ramps

When Alayne and I were looking at properties over the winter, our main focus was on how suitable the buildings would be for the animals.  There was no "perfect" place with just the right set of facilities for a sanctuary like ours, and given the disabilities our animals have, we could never had expected to find a property that didn't need modifications of some sort.  But one of the things we liked a lot about this place in Lancaster was just how well suited it already was for what we did.  And the only modifications we needed on the main house for the disabled dogs were ramps and railings. 

So back in early April when I first came out to get Internet access installed and to prepare for moving in, I had the good fortune to meet a neighbor of ours, Jim D., who is an amazing builder and craftsman (as well as an incredibly nice guy who's been immensely helpful!).  Jim has been building the ramps we needed on both the front and back of the house for the dogs.  In the photo above -- yes, that's blind Molly modeling -- you can see what the changes look like.  

Here's another view taken a bit later the same evening, and Molly is still modeling:

There was an existing ramp coming out the main front door in the center of the two wings, but it went to the driveway on the left and needed to be rebuilt anyway, so we did that and added a new ramp that went into the yard.  This is the way I take the "front yard dogs" out in the morning:

We still need to add lattice to the bottom of the ramps -- you can see the sheets of lattice leaning up against the fence on the left in the photo above.

For the railings, I asked Jim to add what I call a "Dachshund rail" at the bottom, to keep the little ones from inadvertently -- or intentionally! -- going off the side:

At the back of the house, there was a steep set of stairs coming out of the dog wing, so Jim made a landing off the door and then a ramp coming down the side of the building:

This is how I take the "back yard" dogs out of the building in the morning.  Some, like blind Patti and blind Willie, are already just following me out the door, down the ramp and over to the yards, all on their own ... and doing the reverse in the evening.  My goal is to have them all trained to do that!

The Porch

If the big fir in the front yard is a favorite place to hang out when the weather is nice, the porch is where the action is for rainy days.  In the photo starting at the top, that's blind Helen at the far end, blind Penny, blind Priscilla, her sister Molly, then Bailey and blind and deaf Spinner.  Priscilla and Molly are usually snuggled up together on a bed, but for some reason Molly wandered off this time.  But it's not just a brief rain shower that brings the dogs up onto the porch; it's a nice, cool place to hang out when it's sunny and hot, too. 

One blog reader asked where Trooper was in an earlier photo of the Poodle sisters -- he's in one of the dog yards behind the house, with blind Buddy and blind Brody.  The girls are kind of "over" Trooper, thankfully.  They finally realized what we'd told them all along -- they could do so much better than a two-timing hound dog with crooked legs!  They seem a bit embarrassed now that they swooned over him way back when.

You can see we added railings to the porch.  That's only part of the carpentry work we've had going on here in recent weeks, and I'll post some photos of the projects later this week.

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A couple of people asked about what happened to our skunk, Annie Andrew.  This actually was a bit distressing for us to have to leave her behind.  While I have no doubt we could have caught her in a live trap, I don't think legally we could have transported her to another state.  Even if we could have received permits, relocating wildlife from their home territory can be counterproductive -- she might have been driven off or killed by other skunks here, or by other predators.  So we've explained to both our real estate agent and our friends who will be looking after the ranch for us that Annie Andrew is a sweet, harmless skunk who won't bother anyone.  Hopefully whoever buys the ranch will take the same "live and let live" attitude towards her that we did, and that she did towards us. 

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Speaking of selling the ranch, other blog readers have asked whether it is now on the market.  Yes, it is.  You can see the listing for it here.  In a couple of the photos you'll notice an unusual structure you may not have seen before -- it's a 26' solar dome greenhouse, a personal project that Alayne and I put in a couple of years ago.  I was growing big, fat zucchinis in there this past February, along with a beautiful crop of  salad greens and spinach all winter long.  These solar dome greenhouses are designed for high-altitude, cold climate gardening, and they work amazingly well.  We were sorry to leave it behind, too!  Anyway, I knew people would ask about that building when they saw the photos.

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We now have our official new mailing address here in New Hampshire:  It's the Rolling Dog Ranch, P.O. Box 150, Lancaster, New Hampshire, 03584.  We do have a street mailbox but it's down the road and out of sight, so we thought it better and more secure to use a post office box.

With the new address in hand, I will be working with a Web designer this week to update the Web site, graphic design elements (like the banner at the top of the blog that said, "A special place where disabled animals enjoy life on a Montana ranch" ... now changed), and related issues.  There are a lot of moving parts, so please bear with us if you notice some things have been updated and others haven't.

The Tree

There's a favorite spot in the front yard, and it's under a big fir tree that casts a wonderful shadow on warm, sunny days. That's blind Molly and Priscilla under the tree in the photo above.

Here's an earlier shot I took of blind Goldie enjoying the tree ... she's the tiny gold speck right in front of the trunk:

And a little closer in:

She's got her head up and is sniffing the air for clues:  "Say, anything new out there?"

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Lots of comments about the camera.  I use a digital SLR (a Nikon D50)  for high-resolution, fast-shooting and no shutter lag.  It's too big to carry around but provides the image quality and speed -- especially for animal photography -- I want.  Many of the best blog photos end up in the print newsletters, for which I need 300 dpi resolution.  For the Web you only need 72 dpi, but that won't work in print.

Sister As Pillow

I was scooping the dog yards this morning when I looked over and saw blind and deaf Spencer using his sister Katie as a pillow.  They were both soaking up the sun, snoozing soundly.  I've been trying to get a photo of them sleeping for a while, because they always use each other as pillows.  Somehow the scenes weren't quite right for a photo ... too dark, or another dog in the way, etc.  But this morning's view of them was great.  These two are inseparable, and when it comes to napping, they never curl up without the other one.  Usually it's Katie who has draped herself over Spencer, and at times the configuration appears downright uncomfortable for both of them, but clearly it seems to work.  This one, though, looks really comfortable ... at least for Spencer!

A few minutes after I took the photo and went back to scooping, they bounced up and began zooming around the yard.  A short while later I was finishing up another yard and looked over to see them back in the same spot, napping once more ... but this time with Katie using Spencer as a pillow, in the exact same way he been sleeping on her just a bit earlier.  I thought, oh, this is too perfect -- but as I headed to the house to get the camera again, they popped up and started cruising the yard once more.  Oh, well.  You get the idea!

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Lots of people are asking when Alayne is getting here.  Good question, and my answer:  Not soon enough!  We had hoped she'd be here by June 15, but now it looks like she may at least be on the road to New Hampshire by then or shortly thereafter -- so we're shooting for having her arrive by the summer solstice, or June 21.  The five dogs she still has with her in Montana are Mitch, Allie, Soba, Holly, and Madison.