Rolling Dog Farm

Oh, Widget

Darla's left eye going blind wasn't the only bad news last week. There was plenty. On Tuesday, I had taken Widget in for her post-chemo "re-staging" to see what the status of her lymphoma was. Since our oncologist, Dr. Kendra Knapik, had already determined Widget was in remission just a month ago, and since Widget just had her final chemotherapy treatment two weeks before, we weren't very concerned. She was her usual happy, active and bossy little self. The oncologist was out that day, so our internal medicine specialist, Dr. Marielle Goossens, did the tissue aspirates of her lymph nodes for pathology and supervised the rest of the tests performed by Kendra's team of vet techs.

On Wednesday afternoon, as that big snowstorm was roaring in, I was up at the hay barn feeding the goat bucks in their shed when Marielle called. She had just received the pathology report. Widget's lymphoma had returned. I was stunned. We had just finished the chemotherapy, Widget looked and acted like she was perfectly healthy, and we were expecting at least several months of smooth sailing ahead. It wasn't to be.

Kendra called later that night to review the findings and discuss our options. They ranged from putting Widget on a maintenance dose of prednisone, which might buy us weeks, to last-ditch "rescue" chemo drugs used in cases like this, to re-opening the original protocol and starting over.

What struck us as so strange is that Widget's remission had come in the wake of a steady treatment of the vinblastine/Cytoxan combination of drugs ... but for the last several treatments, spanning about 6 weeks, she had been only on a single chemo drug called Mitoxantrone. I asked Kendra if it were possible that for whatever reason, the Mitoxantrone just wasn't as efffective in her as the vinblastine/Cytoxan combination. She said there was no way to know for sure, but it was possible. Clearly Widget had gone out of remission quite quickly, and the only thing that changed during that time was the drug.

We weren't about to give up. If you watched Widget march around the place, tail up, bossy as ever, you'd never know she had cancer. As I write this on Monday morning, I can hear her at the other end of the house in the dog room, wooing away, demanding one of us come down and offer her a snack of her choice.

We decided to re-open the protocol and resume the vinblastine/Cytoxan treatment. The goal will be to knock the lymphoma back into remission, and then see how she's doing.

Kendra wanted us to bring Widget in right away to start treatment again. That was a problem, with the worst of the snowstorm descending Wednesday night and Thursday. I had already plowed Wednesday to keep up with the snow, and Thursday morning I got on the tractor again to open the drive once more. Just before noon I bundled Widget into the front seat of the truck, put Darla in the back seat (more on that in a minute), set the truck in 4-wheel drive, and headed off to Burlington. It took well over three hours, including time to stop and assist briefly at a roll-over accident along the way, but eventually Widget, Darla and I made it to the clinic. 

While Widget was getting her vinblastine intravenously, I took Darla in to see our ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, again. I was still getting pressure spikes in her left eye in the morning, despite the additional glaucoma meds Darla was on. Sarah had hoped that after a few days Darla might regain a menace response, and thus vision, in that eye, but the pressure spikes I was registering before her morning eyedrops were troubling. It meant she was having significant spikes overnight.

Although her left eye looked much better than it did on Tuesday, it still didn't seem to have a menace response. Finally, Sarah taped a bandage over Darla's good right eye, put her on a leash, and walked out into the hallway with her. I could tell from how Darla was moving that she couldn't see. Her steps were tentative and her body language was fearful. My heart sank when I watched her walk into the wall. No, that left eye was blind and vision was not coming back.

Dang.

Now, instead of laser surgery to prevent glaucoma in that eye, we will be looking at removing that eye (enucleation) or doing an injection of Gentamicin, which "kills" the part of the eye that produces the fluid (called aqueous humor). It's the inability of the eye to adequately drain out this fluid that builds up the intraocular pressure, resulting in glaucoma and thus blindness. We haven't decided which option to take, but we'll make that decision by Wednesday, when we take her back to the clinic.

The (only) good news was that the three of us made it safely back to the farm Thursday evening. Widget has been getting her Cytoxan treatment here during the past few days (it's a pill we give her once a day). 

I think I hear Alayne heading back down the stairs to see what Widget wants now. Full-time concierge service, I suspect.

Darla Update

I was in Burlington yesterday with three special girls -- Darla, Widget and Aurora -- for a full day of veterinary medicine. Darla was scheduled for her double surgery ... our ophthalmologist would be doing a laser procedure on her left eye, which had developed glaucoma, and our surgeon would be removing a small mast cell tumor on her knee.  

But on Monday afternoon, when I tested the pressure in Darla's left eye with our Tono-Pen, I was shocked to see it was at 36 -- definitely glaucoma territory. We had been giving her glaucoma meds twice a day for the past several weeks, and we were used to seeing pressures in the teens because the meds had it under control ... or so we thought. I tested her again a few hours after her evening dose of meds, and was relieved to get 16 and 17. But the spike to 36 was alarming.

I mentioned this to our ophthalmologist's tech Patty C. when we checked in early yesterday morning. She pulled out their Tono-Pen and registered 68 and 70. Uh oh. Darla also now had no menace response (i.e., when you suddenly bring your hand or an object up to her eye, she doesn't blink in response). This meant she was functionally blind in that eye. 

I was in a complete dither at that point. Our ophthalmologist, Dr. Sarah Hoy, came in and duplicated Patty's findings. Sarah then sedated Darla's eye and used a needle to draw fluid out, which instantly lowered the eye pressure. Sarah wanted to see if after a couple of hours Darla might regain a menace response. She didn't.

I was so upset at all this I didn't even think about taking photos, and left the camera on the chair in the exam room. The photo at top was from her previous exam in January.

If she's already blind in that eye, it's too late to do any surgery. Even though her retina and optic nerve still looked good yesterday, it can take a while for those to start atrophying.

Sarah wanted to start Darla on some systemic medications to lower her eye pressure, while we continue the topical meds, and see if over the next several days she will regain the menace response. Sometimes it does come back, and the surgery might still be possible.

I was worried about putting off the mast cell surgery any longer, but Darla's team of doctors -- ophthalmologist, internist and surgeon -- huddled and concluded there was little risk in postponing the mast cell surgery for a week. Better to do that than put her under two separate operations (which was the reason we had waited to schedule both of these together).  

So we have rescheduled her for next Wednesday. We will probably know by Friday if the menace response has returned, and I will continue to check her eye pressures.

All in all, a terrible development.

I'll post updates on the other two girls next week.

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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!

 

And ... He's Out!

Well, exactly one week after he arrived, on Friday afternoon, Sunny came out of hiding. Alayne walked into the dog room and found him lying on a bed in the sun. He looked at her, got a worried look on his face, glanced nervously over at his crate as if he was going to make a run for it ... but stayed on the bed. Alayne didn't approach him but went about cleaning and tidying things up in the room. Holly, Cap and Bugsy were all swirling about her.

And then, as if he was taking his cue from the other dogs -- which he was, in fact -- he got up and walked towards her. Tentatively, shyly, but nevertheless wiggling his little tail. She bent down to love him up.

That was that.

He's been out ever since. By Saturday afternoon he'd made it down the hallway to the living room. That's when I took these photos. He's a cute fellow, not as chunky as he first appeared when hunched in his crate all the time.

He's definitely more comfortable with Alayne than me, but all I have to do to get him to come to me is get down on the floor with a couple of other dogs and start making all over them. He can't stand it, and heads on over for his own share.

At one point on Saturday, Alayne even saw him happily rolling around on his back in the sun in the dog room. (That solarium is wonderful on sunny winter days!)

Here he is meeting Wilbur, with Holly behind them:

(Looks like someone's diaper has slipped down.)

We joke to Holly that Sunny looks like her long lost son she left behind in Shreveport. She's not amused.

Here's the problem with his leg -- the lower part is bent, as if there's no ankle, and the foot is split in two sections:

Another view, showing how that long singular section folds under the rest of the foot:

When he does try to use that leg, he ends up walking on the edge of the turned over foot. Much of the time he is hopping around, holding the leg up in the air. When he tries to walk on it, he kind of throws the foot down on the ground. It's a very awkward gait. It looks like a cross between a hop and a shuffle.

I'll take Sunny to see our surgeon, Dr. Kurt Schulz, and our internist, Dr. Marielle Goossens, for an evaluation. I'll wait until Sunny's a bit more comfortable with his new world, though -- we don't want to overwhelm him. He's still not too sure of things, and doesn't have any confidence ... despite his venturing out, we'd still describe him as fearful. But what a change from a week earlier!

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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!

 

Here's Sunny. Though He's Not.

This is the little guy who arrived with Cap. The Arkansas shelter had heard about him at a rescue group in Shreveport and asked if we could take him. You can't tell from the photo, but he was born with a deformed right front leg. We will need to get it evaluated by our veterinarians.

His name is Sunny, and if ever there was a mismatch between a dog's name and his personality, this is it. This poor guy is scared and wants nothing to do with us or the other dogs. He is everything Cap is not. 

I had to take the photo of him in the crate because he basically hasn't left it since coming here last Friday. No, really. When we get too close, he growls. We leave the door open, but the only time he's actually come out is to go potty on a nearby towel or bed on the floor. That's it. And he only does that when we aren't around.

He was turned into a shelter with the rest of his litter a year or so ago. His brothers and sisters were all euthanized. The shelter staff felt sorry for him because of his deformity and decided not to euthanize him. That may be the first time we've heard of a disability saving an animal rather than being the reason to put him or her down. 

Sunny was described to us as a Chihuahua mix, but he's a lot bigger than any Chihuahua, so we aren't sure what the other part of that mix is. It had to have been a good size dog. I mean, Sunny is still a small guy, but not in that Chihuahua type class of dogs.

Fortunately, he's not at all like Bugsy was when he first came, so we're hoping this process won't take nearly as long. As you know, Bugsy turned completely around and is now a total love-bug. We can only hope Sunny will too.

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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!

Big Trouble, Small Package

What weighs 5 pounds and cruises at 500 mph?  

If you guessed a new, super-secret drone of some sort, you'd be mistaken.

If you guessed a tiny, wire-haired Dachshund mix puppy of some sort, you'd be correct.

His name is Cap, and he arrived on Friday from the same Arkansas shelter where Tanner came from. The animal control officer there had seen this one-eyed puppy offered on Facebook in a "free-to-good-home" ad, and immediately worried that he could end up as pitbull bait for a dogfighting ring. The ACO contacted the owner and picked up the puppy, and then asked if we could take him.

We've heard a couple of different versions about what happened to his left eye. The animal control people were told he had the eye scratched by a cat when he was just a few weeks old and the vet removed it. When we got the vet records that came with him, however, we noticed the paperwork said he had been "born blind" in that eye, and the vet had done an enucleation. I called the clinic on Friday to ask for a clarification. A staff member told me he had been born with a left eye that was small and shrunken, which is why the vet removed it. He can see just fine with his right eye.

Another discrepancy: Cap was supposed to be 5 months old, but after animal control got him they found out he was ... drum roll please ... only 8 weeks. So he is pure puppy. And yes, that means we are working on housetraining. 

Cap is one of the friendliest, happiest, most sociable and outgoing little characters we've ever seen. Just a sweet, loving tyke who enjoys meeting people, dogs, shoes, computer cords, toys and anything else along the way. Even his own tail is good for a chase every now and then. He zooms everywhere. He's so light we often don't even hear him, but see a small dark shape streaking across the floor. He's smaller than he seems in these photos -- you could put him in a coat pocket and still have room for a beer.

Of course, the other dogs are looking at us as if to say, "Who let him in the house?" Cap doesn't understand why all of his new uncles and aunts aren't thrilled to have him jumping up and down on them, and he is learning boundaries from his elders. Here he is with Holly:

Holly promptly growls at him, getting this look in response:

(Click on photo for larger image to see how big that tiny one eye can get.)

Here he is with blind Sophie:

We decided he may start thinking that growling here is just everyone's way of saying "Hey, nice to meet you, kid."

Well, there is someone who not only doesn't growl at him, but plays with him:

Yes, Tanner! He loves this little guy, and they like to play tug-of-war over soft chew toys:

And even when a chew toy isn't involved, Tanner doesn't seem to mind having a puppy hanging off his face:

Cap is just a doll, and we don't see any reason he can't be available for adoption right away. So if you're interested in adopting this little guy Alayne calls "Pop Top," please send an email to steve[at]rollingdogfarm.org. All the usuals apply -- potential adopters need to come out to meet us and the dog, we'll need a vet reference, etc. We'll do the initial screening via email.

There was one other dog who also arrived on the same transport as Cap. We wish he had a fraction of Cap's personality, but alas, he doesn't. He's shy and scared and prefers hiding to socializing. Hopefully I can get a photo of him for the next blog post!

Final photo of the munchkin:

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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!

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!