Rolling Dog Farm

The Rest Of The Photo

In the previous post I said that the leg in the photo belonged to Tanner. Well, here's what was going on just before Wilbur stood up and Alayne took the photo. Both boys were enjoying some winter sunshine coming through the storm door. We use towels by the doors instead of door mats because of all the foot traffic -- two, three and four-feet at a time -- coming through, usually with snow attached. They get tossed in the wash as needed. But, when they're fresh and dry and happen to occupy a sunny spot, it's a nice place to snooze, too.

Tanner does not like having his photo taken, which is why you see that vaguely suspicious expression. We've had a number of really cute things to photograph -- like him playing with Bugsy (adorable!), or him playing with Darla (yes!) -- but as soon as the camera comes out, he breaks off the activity. So we'll keep trying.

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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!

Oh Fine, Show The World My Diapers

Yep, there he is sporting his new diapers. He couldn't believe we were taking his photo to post on the blog. We told him not to be embarrassed -- about 25 million adult Americans have urinary incontinence, and in Japan the sales of adult diapers are set to overtake infant diapers. (No, really.) We don't know how many adult dogs are incontinent, but we've sure had quite a few over the years.

In Wilbur's case, his newly developed incontinence seemed to be a complication from his bladder stone surgery. Fortunately, the diapers work very well on him. We haven't had such luck on some other incontinent dogs -- generally because they manage to chew or pull their diapers off. But now Wilbur is back to skittering around the house at will, happy and leak-proof!

(In case you're wondering, the leg in the foreground of that photo belongs to Tanner.)

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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!

Another Way To Do It

Posting that photo on Monday of Travis jumping the gate reminded me that I had yet to post some photos I took a couple of months ago of Aurora showing us how she deals with the gate. Like Travis, if we don't get to the gate first, no problem ... off to the side she goes, as you can see above. 

Up and over:

And gone:

Early on she realized this worked just as well in reverse, too:

These next two photos of her I took at a different time earlier in the winter, during one of our melts ... this is what Aurora does after climbing through the ramp rails to get back in:

That's right, she's howling to let us know she's at the door and ready to come in, thank you very much and please hurry. (I took the photos through the storm door, and she didn't know I was on the other side.) After howling to get our attention, she then listens carefully for the sounds of approaching servants:

I've mentioned this before, but to recap, the reason we keep the gate closed at the bottom of the ramp is because we have a few dogs who will come back up the ramp and end up doing their business outside the front door. Fortunately, Miss I'll-Do-It-My-Way isn't one of those!

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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!

Still Jumping

I took this photo a couple of days ago of Travis jumping the gate at the end of one of the ramps. His normal play yard is behind the house, but after his dental surgery we moved him to the front yard for exercise so we could keep a better eye on him during his recovery. One morning we didn't get to the gate before he did, and Travis must have thought, "No point in waiting for those people" -- so he backed up, took a run at it, and over he went. He's been doing it ever since. (The dark spot on his side is where his stomach tube used to be.)

He's always been a jumper, as this blog post from Montana back in 2009 shows. His agility led to containment problems back then, too, and finally resulted in us putting in a 6 foot tall fence around a play yard just to keep him in. When we moved to the New Hampshire farm we set up a Travis-proofed yard with a 6 foot fence, but ironically we've never had to put him in it ... perhaps because we got smart and made all the rest of the fences 5 feet high anyway just in case!

I suppose probably not having all those teeth in his mouth takes a half-pound off his jumping weight, eh?

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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!

Whew, I Made It Inside

That's Tanner on a bed in the living room, enjoying one of Holly's favorite toys. (We didn't tell her.) This is what he does when he makes it past the security guard out front -- i.e., Darla -- and scampers into the house.

Tanner's hip is completely healed up and he enjoys racing around the yard on three very fast legs these days. A couple of days ago we had put the dogs out while we were having lunch, and I could look out the window and see Tanner joyfully sprinting back and forth along the fence -- just because he could. I marveled to Alayne, "Look at that boy go!"

Barb R. asked whether Travis' mouth is staying open after his surgery. Yes, it is so far, though we still have him on a very small dose (2.5 mg every other day) of prednisone. We're waiting a bit longer to do the final taper. Travis feels great, too -- he sprints out the door with Tanner every morning, and together they race to the spruce tree at the other end of the yard.

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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!

 

 

Stay Out Of My House - Part 2

Just a few hours after I posted that last blog about Darla keeping Travis and Tanner at bay, Alayne managed to get the photos that had eluded us for the past few weeks. By shooting from inside the house, she captured the moment without interrupting the action. In the shot above, that's Darla in the foreground with Travis on the left in the back and Tanner on the right.  (Click on photo for larger image.)

The boys finally decided to split up, each heading for a separate ramp (there are two going into the house). They thought that would work to confuse the old girl, but she promptly positioned herself between the two ramps.  Smart, eh?  Darla simply darted in either boy's direction if he made a move to his respective ramp:

This kept both her and them busy for a bit.

You can see Travis is giving Alayne the same look Tanner gave me earlier:  "Hey, are you going to do something?"

Once Alayne finished getting the photos, she called Darla to the house. She came bounding up, tail wagging, pleased as punch with herself. Again.

Stay Out Of My House

It turns out that not only is Darla a very good watch dog -- she is very alert to anything in the woods beyond the front yard, and she'll stand and growl until satisfied the "threat" is gone -- but she's decided certain other dogs don't belong in the house and keeps them at bay. Specifically, Travis and Tanner.  

We've been trying to get better photos of her in action, but most times when we step out with the camera, Travis and Tanner see us and decide this is their "safe" moment to make a break for the house. Darla gets distracted because we've shown up -- probably wondering if she should continue fending them off or whether it's now up to us to keep the ruffians out of the house -- and they race around her for the ramps. 

But the other morning I got that shot above ... you can see by her stance, and by the fact her fur is up, she's keeping Tanner away from the ramp. Tanner's looking at me to say, "Help?" Many mornings, after we let the dogs out, soon everyone else will be milling around the ramps or up on the porch. But Darla will have both Travis and Tanner cowed and blocked halfway out in the yard, unwilling to challenge her. That's the photo I've been trying to get.

Some days she has both boys sufficiently "frozen" that even us showing up doesn't give them enough courage to make a bold move around Darla for the ramps. We'll call her off, and she'll reluctantly turn around and head back in. I'm sure she's thinking, "Well, at least I tried."

Now, this is all bluffing. She would never hurt them or attack them. All she does is assume that posture, get her hackles up, and growl. Oddly, Travis -- who is a dominant alpha type personality -- won't call her bluff. He's been willing, in years past with a fused jaw, to foolishly challenge our blind husky Mitch, who would promptly roll Travis and send him packing. (He quickly learned.) But something about Darla keeps him humble.

We're not sure exactly when or why she decided these two were "undesirables." Once they're actually in the house, she's fine with them. She's not happy they're in the house, but she doesn't bother them or growl at them. But as long as they're outside, she prefers the scoundrels stay outside.

(Darla hasn't had her procedures yet -- we're still working on scheduling.)

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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!

 

Miss Remission

Alayne took that photo a few days ago of blind Widget in mid-roll on a bed in the living room. 

Back in October, I had mentioned in a post that our oncologist at Peak Veterinary Referral Center in Burlington, Dr. Kendra Knapik, had said Widget was already "probably in remission" at that point. We've had a few ups and downs since then, and for one brief span her lymph nodes became enlarged again after we had to interrupt the chemotherapy for a couple of crucial weeks because of gastrointestinal issues. Along the way we found that one of the chemo drugs in her protocol, vincristine, seemed to be the culprit behind the GI problems. Once Kendra switched her to vinblastine, a similar but different drug, everything improved. Widget's been on a roll ever since. (Um, I think that pun was intended but I'm not really sure.)

At Widget's weekly oncology appointment yesterday, Kendra was quite definitive: Widget's lymphoma is in remission. Yay! We still have a couple of treatments left, but after that we'll be in monitoring mode. It's been a long slog, but absolutely worth it. She wouldn't be with us today otherwise.

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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!

 

Wilbur Update

It's funny how a camera angle can make a 7 lb Chihuahua look three times his normal size, isn't it? Wilbur was also on the van to Burlington last week for a check-up with our internal medicine specialist at Peak, Dr. Dani Rondeau. In the photo that's Dani doing a physical on him. Wilbur has been on blood pressure medication for quite a while, and to keep on top of it, we've been trying to monitor his blood pressure at home using a device called a PetMAP.  

There's only one problem with this particular monitor: It is extremely sensitive to motion, so keeping an animal absolutely still is necessary to get accurate readings. As we've discovered, when you have an animal like a little Chihuahua who trembles, particularly when something is being done to him (like putting a blood pressure cuff on him and inflating it), it is difficult to get accurate readings. He can be perfectly still, i.e., not moving, but trembling slightly, and that throws it off. Last weekend I was getting consistently high blood pressure readings on Wilbur, and wanted Dani to use their Doppler monitor (a different type that is less sensitive to motion) to see if what I was getting were spurious results.

Fortunately, his readings at the clinic were lower than what I was getting on the PetMAP, which means his blood pressure medication is still at the right dosage.

You may remember that Wilbur had bladder stone surgery back in November. One unintended consequence of this is he is now pretty much incontinent, which sometimes happens after this kind of problem. Wilbur can still go "on command," but other times he just pees and seems to have no idea he's doing it. One evening when we were checking his blood pressure, Alayne was sitting back in a chair holding him on her chest, and he just let loose and peed all over her. He didn't even seem to notice. (Although someone else did.) Not much at this point we can do about it, other than getting some itty bitty doggie diapers for this fellow!

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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!