Rolling Dog Farm

I'm Not Sure Which Costume To Pick

Okay, so maybe dressing up for Halloween as an acorn isn't the most convincing costume. But then, how many Chihuahuas have ever tried looking like they just fell out of an oak tree?

Wilbur's other costume is one he's spent a lot of time trying out this year. It's the "can-you-tell-I'm-a-blanket?" one:

A little hard to get around in for trick-or-treating, perhaps, but more convincing than an acorn.

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Final 2013 Shelter Challenge Underway

The final round of the Shelter Challenge for 2013 began on October 28th and runs until December 22. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We just won another $1,000 in the previous round, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

Ready For Halloween

Wendy M., who adopted blind Stoney the Lab and blind-and-deaf Baron from us back in 2008, just sent me this photo of her two pups dressed up in their Halloween costumes. Stoney is going as a ghost and Baron as a Chippendale. Very cute!

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Final 2013 Shelter Challenge Begins

The final round of the Shelter Challenge for 2013 begins Monday, October 28th, and runs until December 22. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We just won another $1,000 in the previous round, so your daily votes do bring in serious money for our disabled animals!

Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

Dog Kisses

One of our long-time blog readers sent us the link to this piece by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods, whose work we have posted on the blog before here and here.

Here's the intro to the Live Science article:

There is real chemistry between dogs and their owners, new research over the last few years and data from Dognition show. From a simple kiss to a long, loving gaze, everyday interactions with dogs are responsible for changing people's biochemistry for the better.

Happy weekend reading!

She's Back

No, not Darla, the wild turkey by the fence in the rear. (Click on photo for larger image.) A year ago I had a post about a wild turkey wandering around the front yard, oblivious to the dogs -- and vice versa. Well, fast forward a year and here we go again. And you can tell that Darla -- who is able to see now -- is paying no attention at all to the turkey in the yard. Neither were any of the other dogs on the front porch.

It wasn't because the turkey hen was discreetly staying along the back fenceline, either -- she was wandering around, unconcerned by the dogs:

In what seems to be an annual event now, the rest of the flock was off to the left under the apple trees. Eventually satisfied that there was nothing good left to eat in the yard, she flew up and away to rejoin her friends.

Darla returned to the porch, concerned only that she might be missing out on our lunch.

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Shelter Challenge News 

Somehow we missed this when it first appeared on the Shelter Challenge blog back in September, but according to the staff there the Rolling Dog Farm "holds the record high for cash grants" since the contest started. With a total of $46,000 in grants, it's "one of the highest and most consistent run of 'wins' in the history of the Challenge...."  Click on this image for a larger version of the screenshot:

Thanks to all of you who made this possible with your dedicated votes for the animals here!

I'd Be Remiss Not To Tell You About My Remission

We're happy to report that not only is Widget doing very well with her chemotherapy, the oncologist confirmed for us last week that Widget's lymphoma is probably in remission -- and if it's not, "it's pretty darn close."  We had noticed even after Widget's first week of treatment how much her lymph nodes had shrunk. That first week, ironically, turned out to be the only really rough week she had with the treatment. Once we got through it, and adjusted/added to her gastrointestinal meds, the second week was a lot better, and she's been cruising ever since. In fact, she no longer even needs most of her GI meds.

She's still fussy about what she wants to eat. Fortunately, however, there is one food she will always eat, and that's our cooked ground goat. She will turn her nose up at freshly cooked ground beef, but offer her the goat, and she chomps away. So while the rest of the menu is constantly evolving depending on her whim-of-the-day, the goat is something she will never pass by.

Sleep-eat-sleep-potty-sleep-eat-sleep. It's a grueling schedule. Meanwhile:

By the way, notice how all the dog beds and blankets we use to carefully cover up the once-white Ikea chair cushions are rearranged for someone's maximum comfort?

The Follow-Up

A couple of weeks ago I took our blind and deaf dog Spinner to our veterinary ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, for surgery on an eyelid tumor. The growth was on the edge of the eyelid and had begun rubbing on her eyeball. On Tuesday of this week it was time to take Spinner back for a re-check exam and to have the sutures removed, which is what Dr. Hoy is doing in the photo above. Her vet tech Patty is holding Spinner still, which wasn't easy -- Spinner was one nervous girl, and panting so hard it made suture removal a bit challenging.

But the growth was benign, fortunately, and the surgery site healed quite nicely. With sutures successfully removed, Spinner was relieved to get back in the van for the trip home. In all the years we've had her -- she first came in 2005 -- she's rarely ever been sick or had to make a trip to the vet clinic, so she wasn't thrilled with this experience. Her view was, "Get me outta here."

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$1,000 For The Animals From The Shelter Challenge!

Yes, the Shelter Challenge results are in and we won $1,000 for winning the most votes of any shelter or rescue group in New Hampshire!  Thank you so much to every one who voted so diligently for the farm. I know from all the emails I got and the blog comments that the changes they made to the Shelter Challenge website made this round difficult and frustrating at times, but we appreciate all your efforts on behalf of our disabled animals.  Thank you!!!

That's My Apple

These are more photos that I took last Saturday while Alayne was picking apples next to one of the goat paddocks. She had been handing out a few apples to the goats, who inevitably would drop a couple of them. Aaron, our Maremma livestock guardian dog, picked one up and the game was on. (Click on photos for larger images.) In the photo above, he's got the apple in his mouth and Maggie the puppy is trying to figure out how to snatch it from him.

As in:

No luck, but she keeps trying:

Joshua, Maggie's brother, sees the game going on and leaves Gina behind to join in the fun:

So now the big lug has two puppies after him:

But after a few minutes of this, the apple fell out of favor and the trio retreated to the shade of the trailer:

One of our blog readers asked whether the dogs have ever encountered any predators and saved the goats. Good question. We first realized we really needed livestock guardian dogs when we lost a kid goat one day back in 2011, as the small herd was grazing around the pond right below the house. A predator -- most likely a coyote -- grabbed him right next to the electric fence and dragged him off into the woods. We never saw it or heard anything, but the kid was missing when we went to bring the herd in at the end of the day. We couldn't find him anywhere (and kids don't wander off from their moms and the rest of the herd).  We eventually discovered his skull the following year.

Livestock guardian dog experts say there's only one true way to tell whether your dogs are successfully guarding or not: Have you lost any livestock? If not, they're doing their job. If you have losses, the dogs are not being effective, for whatever reason. We haven't lost any goats since getting the dogs. Their very presence is usually enough to deter predators and keep them moving on to easier opportunities. 

During our first summer here, in 2010, we had coyotes and "coy-dogs" -- feral coyote/dog crosses -- snatch our chickens in broad daylight and in full view of us, right around the barnyard. They'd just sneak in from the edge of the woods, dart out to grab a chicken, and run back to the woods. They were so brazen that one day Alayne was so close she chased a coyote as it ran off with a chicken in its mouth. Once Gina arrived in the fall of 2011, we haven't lost a single chicken ... even though the dogs aren't specifically out guarding them. 

Scenes From Saturday

Alayne and I had taken the goats and their livestock guardian dogs out to pasture on Saturday morning. As we were driving away in the utility vehicle, I looked up and saw some beautiful apples hanging on a small tree I'd hardly noticed before. I stopped, got out, and reached up to pull an apple off the tree. Crunching away, I realized this was a delicious apple. Alayne got out to grab her own tasty treat. 

There were only a few apples left on the tree by this point in the fall, but we decided to come back after finishing morning chores and pick the rest. That's when I took the photo above of Alayne using her apple picker, a long pole with a basket on the end:

You use the hooks at the end of the basket to gently grab the apple on the branch, then twist it slowly until the apple falls off and into the padded bottom of the basket. 

There are dozens and dozens of wild apple trees scattered across the farm, in addition to the ones we have in the apple orchards. Many of the wild ones aren't great for eating, but occasionally we'll find one that's just delicious, as we did Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, across the way, some of the goats were intently watching Alayne pick apples:

Goats are very inquisitive and curious creatures, so having a caprine audience was natural. But they also knew Alayne was working with apples, and our goats are crazy about them. Here's another view of the goats:

Watching the goats watch Alayne were two of our Maremma livestock guardian dogs, Aaron and a puppy who came this year, Maggie:

The trailer is a portable pasture shelter, with lightweight livestock panels bent to create a kind of "hoop house" on wheels, covered with a tarp. This is also how we transport all the guardian dogs back and forth to the barn -- we just hitch up the trailer to the Kubota utility vehicle with the dogs on board. This way we can move all the goats and dogs in one trip. In the morning, one of us walks ahead with the goats (in true "goatherder" style, crook in hand!), while the other one drives the dogs in the trailer, following behind; we park the trailer on the pasture, let the dogs out with the goats, unhitch, and drive back to the barn, which is quite a distance away. In the evening we do the same thing in reverse.

(Note, these are livestock guardian dogs, not herding dogs, so they don't herd livestock. Their job, and what they've been bred to do for hundreds of years, is to protect the livestock from predators.)

While Aaron and Maggie were enjoying the shade by the trailer, the other two dogs were enjoying some shade on the other side of the pasture:

That's our oldest Maremma on the left, Gina, whose job it was to train Aaron when he came as a puppy last year. On the right is Joshua, Maggie's brother. The puppies are about 5 months old now. Gina and Aaron together are training the youngsters this year. Although they are one happy little pack, Joshua likes to hang out with his Aunt Gina, while Maggie has a big crush on her Uncle Aaron:

A minute or so after taking that photo, the two of them headed over to see what the goats and Alayne were up to:

Dogs Are People, Too

I don't know how many folks saw this article in the New York Times this past weekend, but I thought it was an interesting piece and worth sharing on the blog. 

The photo they picked as artwork for the story is such a sad and haunting image ... and that poor dog is standing right on the edge of the road, with a car coming. Egads.

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New Shelter Challenge Begins

The latest round of the Shelter Challenge is underway and runs until October 13. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584.

They have redesigned the contest site and made other changes. Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!

Henny Penny

Whenever anyone sees our little Barred Rock hen Henny Penny lying like that on the ground, they ask, "What's wrong with your chicken?" My iPhone photo isn't great, but you can tell she's flat out on her side with her legs at awkward angles, almost like she got run over. (Click on photo for larger image.)

We don't know exactly what's wrong with her, but her legs never developed normally and she walks like a cross between a waddling duck and a hopping frog (get yer thinkin' cap on to picture that one). And when Henny Penny wants to rest, rather than sitting down like a hen typically would, she keels over on her side to relax. Not sure why, but it works for her.

We knew something wasn't right when she was a chick two years ago, and honestly we didn't think she would make it with the rest of the Barred Rocks. But she proved herself a tough little survivor, and she is here today still enjoying life as an outdoor hen. She even lays a tiny egg about once a month, a small gift compared to the other hens' eggs but one that always makes us smile. 

And perhaps because of her own struggles, Henny Penny is an empathetic little creature.

Earlier this summer, someone (that would be me) left the gate open to Mitch's yard for a few minutes while poop scooping. One of our Delaware hens -- Gladys, who is part of the original flock from Montana -- wandered into the yard, pecking around for something edible. Mitch might be blind, but as a Husky he has a very strong prey drive, and he immediately could hear Gladys rustling and clucking. In an instant he bounded 40 feet across the yard and grabbed the hen as she raced to escape back under the open gate. 

Fortunately, Alayne was walking down to the dog yards from the house at that very moment and saw Mitch attacking the chicken. She ran in, pulled Mitch off, and swept the hen into her arms. Amazingly, Gladys was still alive but in shock, and though we expected to find her neck broken, it wasn't. Her worst injury was a deep puncture wound in her thigh.

We doctored her wounds, cleaned her up, and put her in a big dog crate for convalesence. About a week later she still wasn't able to walk but clearly wanted to go outside, so we put her on some hay just outside the barn door to soak in the sunshine. The other hens would come over to say hello and then wander off.

Not Henny Penny. No, this small hen with the deformed legs would waddle/hop her way over to Gladys, exchange a few clucks, and then keel over sideways to spend the rest of the day lying next to Gladys. As long as Gladys was outside, unable to move, Henny Penny would be right there alongside her. It was a heartwarming though odd sight, because Henny Penny was the one who looked like she was convalescing from some kind of trauma.

In the afternoon, we'd pick up Gladys and bring her back inside. That's when Henny Penny would leave to go peck around the barn yard.

This went on for a couple of weeks, and day by day Gladys got stronger and healthier, her little friend always staying nearby. Soon Gladys was taking a few halting, gimpy steps before tiring and plopping down. Then more steps. Eventually she began venturing farther and farther from the barn door, walking slowly and with a limp. Finally, one afternoon we went to get her but there was no Gladys. We rushed around looking for her. We were astonished to find her back in the chicken coop with the rest of the girls. She had walked all that distance on her own. She was letting us know she was healed and ready to go home.

We didn't see Gladys make the journey, but we'd bet an awkward looking little hen named Henny Penny accompanied her the entire way.

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New Shelter Challenge Begins

The latest round of the Shelter Challenge is underway and runs until October 13. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584.

They have redesigned the contest site and made other changes. Please note that I cannot help with technical or voting problems. I also do not have an "inside track" to anyone at the Shelter Challenge, and I don't know any more about the contest than anyone else does. So if you find yourself having issues, please consult their FAQ page here and their Rules page, which is a pop-up you can find linked on this page.

Thanks for your votes!