Rolling Dog Farm

I'm Going To Do It My Way

Blind Sophie, our newly diagnosed diabetic, was one of the dogs I took to Burlington last week along with Darla. In the photo above is our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Marielle Goossens, examining Sophie. Under Marielle's direction, we started Sophie on insulin injections and have been carefully increasing her dose, bit by bit, to try and get her regulated and stable. The trick is finding just the right dose to keep the blood glucose within a stable range. Alayne and I have been checking her blood glucose levels repeatedly. We ran the last 24-hour "curve" -- or series of tests -- starting at 8 a.m. Monday morning and checking every two hours, including a 2 a.m. test overnight and concluding yesterday morning at 8 a.m.

I emailed the full results of this curve to Marielle yesterday. When she called me yesterday evening to discuss the findings, she sighed and said, "Sophie hasn't read the literature." That's because Sophie's not responding normally to the insulin, and her results just don't make sense. For example, on Monday morning her blood glucose dropped a pretty dramatic 200 points within two hours after her morning injection, then climbed a bit before dropping back again. But following her evening injection, she actually went up 100 points within two hours and climbed throughout the night, topping out at a startling 503 at 8 a.m. yesterday morning. That's just not supposed to happen. (Normal blood glucose range is generally considered between 75-120 mg/Dl.)  We're making sure she isn't sneaking any extra snacks that could throw off her values, and we're testing her urine as well, which confirms our blood glucose monitor's findings.

Sophie's been "off" since we started -- even the emergency clinic on New Year's Day was surprised at how she responded to their initial insulin injection. One reason for last week's visit with Marielle was to run some other tests to see if there was something simple that could explain why she wasn't responding like she should. But the tests all came back negative. 

After looking at the results from our last curve yesterday, Marielle has called a veterinary endocrinologist at UC-Davis she worked with in the past to see if he has any recommendations. We're just waiting to hear. One thing she's already planning to do is change the type of insulin and see if this generates a different response.

Oddly, despite these blood glucose values and the variations we're seeing, Sophie is acting just fine, thank you very much. Good energy, great appetite, full of her usual zest. "Problem? What problem?," she would ask.

As in:

(Looks like she capsized her "boat," doesn't it?)

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, 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!

Finally, His Oral Surgery

Back in November, I had a long post about a procedure our internal medicine specialist was doing to open the mouth on Travis, our dog with a fused jaw from masticatory myositis. As I explained then, the purpose was to be able to intubate him for anesthesia for a lengthy dental he desperately needed. We had earlier taken Travis to see board-certified veterinary dental specialists at Veterinary Dental Services in Massachusetts. The veterinary dentist there, Dr. Diane Carle, consulted with our internal medicine specialist in Burlington, Dr. Marielle Goossens of Peak Veterinary Referral Center, and together they developed the plan for Travis.

With his mouth now open enough for the tube, I drove Travis to the veterinary dental clinic last Friday for his oral surgery. I took that photo above of Dr. Carle working on Travis. This was a major deal: He was under anesthesia for 7 hours and 40 minutes. She ended up having to extract all of his teeth except his canines and upper incisor teeth.

Many of his teeth were odd sizes and shapes; some molars in the back angled horizontally into the center of his mouth, rather than coming straight up out of the gums. Other teeth were also at weird angles. It's almost as if the masticatory myositis struck him while he was still a puppy and before his adult teeth came in; with his upper and lower jaws shut tight against each other, the adult teeth had nowhere to go when they came in, and thus angled out as they grew, looking for the path of least resistance. That's just a theory; we'll never know for sure because we don't have any history on Travis before he came to us. But it's hard to explain otherwise the appearance and random presentation of many of his teeth.

Here's another shot -- this was what it all came down to, trying to get his mouth open enough to insert that tube:

Here's an over-the-shoulder view of Dr. Carle and her vet tech Kerry, who's checking the anesthesia monitoring unit on the shelf in the background:

Along with the teeth, she removed two oral masses and sent biopsies to the lab for review. We don't have results yet.

We don't know if Travis' mouth will close up again. That will depend in part on how he responds to medication over the long-term. This is something we will be monitoring closely.

We got back late Friday night, and Travis is recovering well from the surgery. He's on pain meds and antibiotics during this period.

Here's one final shot of Dr. Carle extracting a tooth:

I joked to the dental clinic staff that we'd put all his teeth under Travis' pillow and see what the tooth fairy would bring. (Alas, nothing!)

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, 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!

Not A Good Day For Darla

Yesterday was a one-two punch of bad news for Darla.

I took a full van load of dogs to Peak Veterinary Referral Center in Burlington, among them our beautiful Lab/Beagle girl. I had earlier scheduled an appointment with our ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, because I was concerned about changes I was seeing in Darla's eyes. I took the photo above of Sarah examining Darla yesterday afternoon while vet tech Patty held her.

And last week, while loving up Darla one morning while she snoozed on her bed in her room upstairs, my hand brushed across a small bump on her right rear leg. Since she had just come through surgery several weeks ago for a mast cell tumor, we had been alert to any more growths. When I felt this new one, my heart sank. I parted the hair with my fingers and stared at it. It was hard, round, small and more of a bump than the "flatish" dime-sized one our surgeon had just removed. It seemed different from the mast cell tumors we've encountered before, but given Darla's history, it was suspicious.

I emailed a photo of the growth to our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Dani Rondeau, who had diagnosed Darla's first mast cell tumor. She put us on her schedule for yesterday. 

I didn't get photos of Dani aspirating the growth yesterday because I was holding Darla still for her, but here's a shot of Dani doing her overall physical examination:

The news came quickly. A few minutes after taking the aspirate samples away to review under a microscope, Dani came back to the room with our surgeon, Dr. Kurt Schulz, with her. That, I knew, was not a good sign. My heart sank again. While we're still waiting for the official pathology report to confirm the results, Dani found mast cells in the sample, and Kurt wanted to see the location of the growth to determine surgery options. The growth is on her right knee, which means we may have some mobility issues in the immediate post-op phase, but otherwise he thought it would be a routine surgery. We scheduled it for two weeks from now.

Sarah's diagnosis came just as fast: Darla has developed glaucoma in her left eye. I couldn't believe it. Ever since her cataract surgery, we've continued twice daily eye meds, including an eye drop to control eye pressure. (Ironically, the other changes I had noticed in her eyes were not a concern.) So, starting yesterday, Sarah added another glaucoma med back into the mix, as well as a general anti-inflammatory medication. I'll be checking her pressures weekly. 

The long-term prognosis with glaucoma, of course, is not good, and Darla now has a 50/50 chance of developing glaucoma in her right eye, too. I spent some time this morning on the phone with Sarah discussing other, more aggressive treatment options for Darla, including laser surgery to reduce the production of the fluid that ultimately causes the glaucoma. It just seems like such a cruel twist of fate that less than a year after giving Darla her sight back, she's now at risk for going blind again.

I'm not sure which option we're going to pursue at this point, but in the meantime, please keep your fingers crossed for her. 

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, 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!

A Stand Up Fellow

One of the first things we noticed about Tanner when he arrived was how he sloped down in his hindquarters while standing or walking. It looked like that half-leg he was carrying around was literally weighing him down. If you go back and look at the various photos in his arrival blog post, you'll see what I mean. Here's one of those shots:

The day after his surgery to remove that stump, we watched him moving around the front yard and immediately noticed a difference. His back was level as he walked, and when he stood still, his rear leg was perfectly straight. In the photo at the top, which I took on Sunday, you can see how different his posture is.

Here's another view:

And now when he walks or runs, he's almost skipping across the ground. Alayne calls him "Twinkletoes" these days. Having taken off many a leg over the years, we knew Tanner was going to be better off without that stump, but we were amazed to see what a striking difference it made in his case. Here he is running:

Of course, all of this newfound ease of motion is great, but in Tanner's mind nothing quite compares with this:

Thanks to all of our wonderful donors -- your gifts made it possible to do this for him!

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, 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!

There They Are

I mentioned in the previous post that our Maremma livestock guardian dogs weren't in the photos of the goat barn because I had put them outside for exercise that morning. Well, many hours later I brought them in and fed them dinner, then went about feeding the goats. I looked over and saw the trio watching me, looking just as cute as can be, so I pulled out my phone and took that photo. (Click on photo for larger image.)

On the left is Maggie the now 8-month puppy; our big boy Aaron in the background, and the old lady of the bunch, Gina on the right lying down. You can't tell from the photo but Maggie has her left front paw on Gina's head and was pawing at her while sticking her face through the panel. (The bent corral panel is courtesy of one of our blind horses back in Montana.)

These dogs get "cabin fever" in the winter, so unless it's pouring rain or sleeting, we generally put them out at least twice a day to run around for an hour or two each time. And on a gorgeous, warm winter day like Wednesday, they'll stay out all day. Aaron and Maggie, because of their youthful energy, will frolic in any weather conditions; Gina, because of her advanced age, is more content to stay inside the barn if the weather is really cold. But if she's in for one entire day, then the next day she is ready to head outside, no matter how cold it might be.

The goats, on the other hand, generally prefer staying inside where it's warm and dry and there's plenty of hay to eat. Come March, though, everyone in that barn has cabin fever!

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, 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!

Cupola

And now for something a wee bit different.

Last winter (2012-2013) we had brought all the goats into a barn that we had converted from its original purpose as a 5-bay vehicle shed. By mid-winter we realized we had ventilation problems -- the building had been designed to house vehicles, not living, breathing, pooping and peeing animals, so it was difficult to get fresh air into it without opening the garage doors. On beautiful, sunny winter days, this was fine as long as it wasn't too cold, but otherwise -- which was most of the time -- this was impractical. Even with the doors open, air couldn't really move through the building because there was no way to vent the stale, inside air out. The trick is to keep fresh air moving through without a) creating drafts (which can be deadly) and b) without losing too much of the natural warmth in the barn created by all those goat bodies.  

As we wrestled with this last winter, I devoured article after article that I found online about livestock housing ventilation. Of course, as I quickly discovered, the "modern" solution is to install expensive mechanical ventilation systems that rely on electricity to power fans pushing air into and pulling air out of livestock buildings.

But across New Hampshire and Vermont, we noticed all these old barns with cupolas on top of the roofs. That led me back to some of our books on traditional agricultural practices, and I was soon reading up on why and how the old-timers used cupolas to deal with this issue. I realized this was what we needed for the goat barn, but who knew how to build real, working cupolas any longer? Well, as it turned out, our neighbor Jim D. -- who has done other projects for us -- had built a couple of smaller, more ornamental style cupolas during his carpentry career. He offered to tackle this project. Drawing on what I had read, we worked out a ventilation plan for the barn with an old-fashioned cupola as the centerpiece.

Today -- on a warm and sunny January day, with the snow all melted again for the second time this winter! -- I took some photos of how we retrofitted the barn to fix the problem.  The photo at the top of the post is a close-up of the cupola. Here is a more panoramic shot:

One of the problems in the goat barn was that it had a hay loft overhead with a solid wood floor. This prevented the air -- even with garage doors open -- from flowing up, so instead it just swirled around inside the goats' area below the hay loft. Even if we put a cupola on the roof, it wouldn't work unless we could create a natural flow of air. The main answer to this was some basic iron grates in the floor:

We also put much smaller air vents at the top of the exterior walls under the eaves, so air could constantly flow in without creating drafts on the animals:

We installed a dozen of these on the warmer, south side of the barn. This way, with the garage doors closed most of the time, there is still fresh air entering the barn.

Here's a view from the hay loft looking up into the cupola:

The cupola is four feet by four feet. Jim cut a hole in the roof, installed the solid-sided base, then set the rest of the cupola -- the louvered sides and roof -- on the base. The round device you see attached to the rafter is a fire detection sensor, which will set off an alarm in the house.

The goats were enjoying breakfast this morning when I took this photo:

The barn is facing south, and you can see how nice it is when we open those garage doors on warm winter days like today. There are two garage doors on the north side, too, which means in the summer we open both sets of doors and it's a wonderfully cool, airy barn on the hottest of days.

If you're wondering what's on top of those hay feeders ... <sigh>. Contrary to myth, goats are very picky eaters who like to sample a little of this and a little of that, and discard what doesn't interest them. Out on pasture and while browsing, this selectivity makes them excellent foragers because they always choose the highest-protein part of the plant ... and then move on. They apply this same selectivity to a bale of hay, however, and you can pretty soon end up with half the bale scattered across the floor. Even better for a goat is to stand up on the hay feeder and pull the hay straight out of the top, drop it on the ground, and sort through it there before going back for something else.

We finally blocked off the top of the feeders with some lightweight panels, which is what you see there.

In the other corner of the barn is the winter quarters for the Maremmas:

That's their "bale hut" in the background, with the green automatic waterer in the foreground. It's a double unit, with the one for the goats on the other side of the corral panels. Wonderful friends and supporters, Shirley and James from Portland, Oregon, came out this fall to help with some projects, which included reconfiguring the barn for the winter. James built the A-frames to keep little goat poop pellets from getting in the waterers. (That is the problem with automatic waterers -- sooner or later an animal will back right up to it and unload. Ick. Goats also look at an automatic waterer as a convenient and fun platform for jumping and frolicking.)

Oh ... and if the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, so is the hay bale:

I put the Maremmas outside this morning for exercise, which is why they aren't in the photos.

Melody says, "Got anything else for me to eat today?":

Final bonus photo -- what a beautiful day!

(Click on photos for larger images.)

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, 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!

Warm Chihuahua

During the recent cold snap we fired up the wood stove in the living room to help out the heating system, and the spot in front of the stove became an instant favorite. The dogs took turns lying or sitting in front of it. Alayne took this photo of Wilbur enjoying the wood stove warmth. Funny how the camera can make a 7 lb munchkin of a Chihuahua look so large, huh?

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, 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!

Tanner After Surgery

I took that photo of Alayne with Tanner this afternoon, about an hour after I returned from Burlington with him. Our surgeon, Dr. Kurt Schulz, removed the remaining stump of Tanner's right leg yesterday. We think, but don't know for sure, that he lost the lower half of the leg to a trap. Kurt also neutered Tanner for us; one of the testicles was shrunken from an unknown cause, so our internist, Dr. Marielle Goossens, is sending tissue samples to a pathologist to make sure there isn't something weird going on. 

The surgery went very well, and this morning at the clinic Tanner came bounding out on a leash, tugging Kurt along behind him. Tanner is in great spirits, and it's amazing to see how happy and energetic he is the day after having major surgery.

Tanner does not like having his photo taken, however, which is why he is looking away from the camera in that shot. Although with just the right high-pitched goofy sound, I was able to get this expression:

[Please note the perfect color match between Alayne's turtleneck and the plastic pot on the table behind her. I did not arrange that, though wish I could take credit for it.]

Since being with us, Tanner's weight has increased from about 27 pounds when he first arrived to 37 pounds yesterday. No more bones sticking out! But as a three-legger, we'll need to keep him on the trim and lean side from this point on.

After the photos, we put a soft cone on his head to keep him from licking and chewing at the staples closing up the incision site. He didn't appreciate our concern, needless to say.

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2014 Shelter Challenge Underway

The first round of the Shelter Challenge for 2014 is underway and runs until March 30th. You can vote every day here. To search for us, type in our name, Rolling Dog Farm, and Lancaster, NH 03584. We've won thousands of dollars in the previous contests, 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!

Diabetic Girl

Alayne took that photo of blind Sophie sharing a bed with Widget on January 2nd, the day after we found out Sophie is diabetic. Yes, I spent a good part of New Year's Day at the emergency vet clinic in Littleton, trying to figure out what was going on with her.

A couple of days before the holiday, Sophie had started peeing in the house ... sometimes even while walking, leaving a trail of urine behind her. Figuring she had a urinary tract infection, we started her on antibiotics. But on New Year's Day morning, she came into the house, hustled over to the water bowl, and started guzzling water like crazy. She had her fill, turned around and threw it all up. Then she went back to the water bowl, started drinking again ... and threw it up. Uh oh.

Soon I was on my way to the clinic. Dr. Christine Nau, who had spent hours trying to save Bentley for us last June, was on duty that day. A blood panel and urinalysis soon gave us the answer: diabetes. We've been down this road before, though our last two diabetes cases were real heartbreakers -- Sammy in 2006 and Teddy in 2009. Both had come to us late in life, after suffering from long untreated diabetes. At least with Sophie, we were catching it early, and because of our previous experience, we knew what to expect: daily glucose monitoring, insulin injections, urine strips, and the ongoing challenge of trying to regulate the diabetes to keep glucose levels in the safe zone. 

I left Sophie at the clinic so Dr. Nau could start her on insulin that evening and monitor her overnight. When I got back to the farm, I emailed our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Marielle Goossens, Sophie's bloodwork and the initial diagnosis by Dr. Nau for her review. In the morning, when I picked Sophie up, Dr. Christopher Burwell was on duty (he had been there when we lost Pip in 2012). Sophie had not responded to the insulin as they expected -- her glucose had come down faster and farther than it should have, given the dose, and thus Dr. Burwell decided not to give her a morning insulin injection. He recommended we take her to our specialists at Peak Veterinary Referral Center in Burlington. It turned out Dr. Burwell had worked with Marielle several years ago, and I called her from the emergency clinic so he could brief her on Sophie's status. By then she had already seen Sophie's bloodwork, too.

After getting the rundown from Dr. Burwell, Marielle told me her treatment plan for Sophie. Dr. Burwell gave me a prescription for insulin so I could pick it up at our local pharmacy on the way home. Every day since then, we've run multiple glucose curves on Sophie with the glucose monitor, check her urine for ketones and glucose, and administer insulin injections. I call Marielle twice a day, just before Sophie's insulin injections at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., to report the glucose levels, and she adjusts the insulin dosage accordingly. We are still at that stage of finding the right dose to keep Sophie regulated, a process that just takes time, but she is doing a lot better. 

Meanwhile, Sophie is wondering why we keep pricking her ears to get blood samples throughout the day. She says, "You know, I like extra attention but this isn't the kind of attention I was counting on."