Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary

Update On Popeye The Kitten

Popeye was a tiny kitten with deformed front legs who came to us from Spokane Animal Control this spring at the age of 3 weeks.  As time went by, his legs started to straighten out, and his fearless, playful personality blossomed.  In our summer newsletter -- seeing what lay ahead -- we titled his story, "He's trouble!"

A very nice young lady named Carmen U. from Missoula recently adopted him, and today e-mailed us her second update on Popeye.  With Carmen's permission, here's what she wrote:

"Popeye is doing well. He's getting huge.  I'll have to send a photo soon.  He is a little terror but a sweetie, too.  He loves to play with the dogs.  They wrestle around together -- he attacks their faces and their legs and the dogs just roll around and play nice with him.  They play chase in the yard, and Popeye also likes hanging out in the dog kennel.  Maybe he thinks he's a dog?

He also enjoys cleaning the dogs' faces and ears.  It's so cute.  The dogs just lay there so relaxed with their eyes shut.  Popeye and my Blue Heeler BOTH sleep right above my head every night!  It's not so comfortable for me but THEY sleep through the night, right next to each other, right on my hair. He enjoys knocking over knick-knacks, spreading playing cards all over the living room, and attacking the bedroom curtains, too.  I guess we'll love him anyway.  :)

He loves his food and comes running every time he hears me open the metal can that holds his food.  He runs so fast he slides and slams into the wall.  You'd think I never feed him!  Anyway, thanks for giving up the little guy.  He's great!  We've affectionately shortened his name to 'Pop' or 'Poppy'."

Thanks for the update, Carmen!

The photos show what Popeye looked like soon after he arrived at the ranch.  He grew really fast, and we're not surprised at all that Carmen says he is huge now.  And the way she describes him is EXACTLY how we thought he would be when he grew up!

Popeye's story is another perfect example of what we've seen so often:  Animals who are dumped at shelters because of their disabilities, and then turn out to be absolutely wonderful companions and a delight to their new families.

(Click on photos for larger image.)

A Hard Day At The Office -- The Sequel

Widget, our blind Beagle/Dachshund mix, spends her days developing and then implementing new and innovative sleeping positions in our living room.  She spends her nights in one of our dog cottages, Kelly's Cottage, but it's not quite clear to us what she's actually doing in there.  In the morning, when we let her and the other dogs out, she comes into the house and promptly goes to sleep.  Widget acts like she's had a hard night out.

I took this photo today at lunchtime.  It shows Widget in a previously unknown sleeping position.  We decided to call this one 'Beached Porpoise Meets Slumberville.'  You may not be able to tell from the photo, but her head is entirely off the chair and resting on the blue pillow underneath her.

And yes, in case you're wondering, all the furniture in the living room ... with the exception of a single recliner ... has been surrendered to canine use.

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Sneak Preview!

We just posted several updates to the sanctuary Web site this evening, including our new arrivals on the Meet the Animals page.  We also posted the online PDF version of our fall newsletter, which will go out in the mail next week.  Look for the newsletter link at the top of the home page.  In addition, there's also a new "stats" page with quick at-a-glance figures.  Finally, we updated the Beauty's Barn page with photos of the now-completed new barn, although regular blog readers would have seen those photos a few weeks ago here.

If you aren't on our mailing list and would like to get our quarterly newsletter in the mail (which has a handy donation envelope in it, too), please e-mail me at steve@rollingdogranch.org.  We don't share our mailing list with anyone, period.  And if you know of friends or family members who love animals and who would enjoy getting our newsletter, please let us know and we'd be delighted to send them a copy of the latest issue.

We hope you enjoy the updates!

Charlie Gets Adopted

Charlie, our big lovable Dane/Pointer mix, was adopted today by a nice young couple from Missoula.  Neely V. saw Charlie on our Web site a few days ago and called to see if he was available for adoption.  I hesitated.  At first I didn't know what to say. 

We had NOT adopted Charlie out in the past, even though he wasn't disabled, because he was the natural 'alpha' of the dogs here.  He is so sweet and gentle, and gets along with everyone, that he set a wonderful tone for all the dogs.  We also ... if truth be told ... loved this dog so much we didn't think we could part with him. 

(This photo shows Charlie in a patient tug-of-war with little Goldie, one of our blind dogs.  Goldie eventually wore him down and he let her win.)

Yet we maintain a limit on the number of dogs we have at the sanctuary at any one time and try to hold pretty firmly to it.  With a perfectly adoptable, wonderful dog like Charlie counting towards our limit, we ended up saying 'no' to a disabled dog somewhere who might have taken that spot.  So in recent months Alayne and I reluctantly decided that we would let Charlie get adopted ... but only if the "right" person somehow came along.  And we wouldn't actively 'market' him on the Web as available for adoption.  (Yes, we were conflicted!  Is it that obvious?) 

So when the phone rang earlier this week, I was at first taken aback when Neely asked about Charlie.  Although Alayne and I had made that decision a while ago, I had pretty much forgotten about it.  Now what?

I interviewed her at length, reviewed our usual list of questions, and went through our standard adoption process.  I decided it was okay.  We scheduled a time for her and her husband Jake to come out to meet Charlie.  Today was the day.

Charlie was his usual endearing, charming self.  It's impossible not to fall in love with this boy.  Neely and Jake spent quite a bit of time with Charlie, took him for a long walk, came back and said, "Could we?"  I took the photo of Charlie with Neely and Jake this afternoon, just before they got in the car to go home to Missoula. 

I told Neely and Jake that Charlie is one of those 'once-in-a-lifetime' dogs. He is truly special.  It was sad to see him go, but I know he will be a very happy boy in his new home.

(Click on photos for larger image.)

First Snow!

Well, look at this!  Our first snow of the season, on September 24th.  That's not unusual for this part of Montana, where our first frosts are often in August.  There was a winter storm warning this weekend for the higher elevations (5000' and up -- we're at 4,100'), and we woke up to rain at first.  But as the morning went on, the temperatures dropped, and the rain turned to snow.  Big, heavy, wet flakes.  (Photo shows Widget's House, our disabled dog building.)  It finally quit snowing after a couple of hours, and by early afternoon the snow had all melted. 

Still, a great reminder of the winter to come!

We Said Goodbye To Old Frasier Today

We had to put old, blind Frasier to sleep today.  This elderly fellow had come to us just about a year ago from a shelter in Illinois.  We knew he had heartworms when we had agreed to take him.  Only after he arrived did we learn he was also in right-sided heart failure.  And there was more.  Frasier had pulmonary hytertension, ascites (fluid build-up in the abdomen), and allergic airway disease.  If all that wasn't bad enough, he had a yeast infection that made his skin and hair oily and stinky.  He was, as we described him then, a medical disaster.  The least of his problems was his blindness!

With excellent medical care, we went to work on this old boy.  We restored his heart and pulmonary functions to safe levels (although he remained on multiple heart medications right up to the end), eliminated the fluid build-up, got the allergic airway disease into remission, and successfully treated him for heartworms, too.  We were still treating the yeast infection when Frasier suddenly started to go downhill in the last few weeks.  He began losing weight, seemed listless, just didn't look right.

We took him back to our specialist for another examination last week.  On ultrasound we found he had developed a thyroid tumor AND a giant spleen tumor.  The thyroid tumor had engulfed the carotid artery that supplies his brain with blood and two major nerves.  Surgery to remove the thyroid tumor alone would be very tricky and full of risks for an old dog like Frasier with his history of medical problems.  As for the spleen tumor, we wouldn't even know how far the cancer had spread until we opened him up.  We might find it was already too late.

There was no point in doing only one of the surgeries.  We'd have to do both.  After consulting at length with our specialist about the risks and likely outcomes, we decided not to put Frasier through this. 

It turned out that nature had already taken its course anyway.  In the past couple of days Frasier had begun shutting down.  He stopped eating.  No amount of cat food or other usual 'lick-the-bowl-clean' yummy stuff could entice him to eat more than a tablespoon or two.  He lost all interest in anything.  Yesterday we decided the time had come.  I took the photo of Frasier this morning, before we loaded him in the truck for the last ride to town.  Sadly, this is how he had looked for the past couple of weeks. 

We had brought Frasier through a lot in the year he was here, and we know he enjoyed his time just hanging out being an old dog.  We're glad we could give him that.  Bless his heart.

Spinning Her Way Into Our Hearts

This blind and deaf girl came to us on the same day that Kodiak did, and although we mentioned her briefly in a post that day, you haven't seen her since.  Well, she's doing just great.  We named her Spinner because she spins around rapidly in tight circles, head straight up in the air, her nose working furiously to gather 'data' from the air. 

We noticed her doing this on her very first evening.  At the time we thought maybe she was just getting used to her new environment.  It turns out that this is really her way of figuring out what is going on around her. 

And in the mornings, when we carry her (yes, she prefers to be carried ... she slinks on the ground if we take her by a collar or put a leash on her) out of the cottage and set her on the ground, she spins in even faster circles, nose up, but also barking like crazy ... as if to let the world know she's come out.  She is so cute and so sweet.

The sclera -- the tissue commonly referred to as "the white of the eye" -- has covered the entire surface of the eye.  There is no iris, pupil, or anything else there.  Just this white tissue.  Yet we've discovered that it seems she can detect light.  Soon after she arrived, we were looking for her one night to put her up in the cottage and went out with a flashlight.  Once the flashlight beam hit her face, she suddenly whipped her head around, right in the direction of the light.  She's deaf so we know she didn't hear us coming.  We tested again with the flashlight with the same response.  We've taken photos of her with a flash and she seems to react to the flash, too. 

We're taking her to the vets next week for some exploratory surgery.  It's too soon to know what, if anything, we might be able to do for her eyes -- what she has is an extremely rare condition -- but the fact that we think she can see light, even under such thick tissue, makes the possibilities very intriguing.

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Keisha on Kodiak's Bed

You may remember reading a few weeks ago that a wonderful friend of the animals, Mark C. from Missoula, had bought a special bed for Kodiak, our paralyzed Malamute.  The bed has a mesh lining so urine flows through and drops into a tray below.  This keeps paralyzed dogs from getting soaked in their own pee.  Well, poor old Kodiak died a week later and never got to use the bed that Mark had so kindly bought for him.

As all this was unfolding with Kodiak, our old three-legged girl Keisha was starting to have incontinent problems of her own.  And when we say "old," we mean it:  She's now 17!  When you get to that age, I think you're entitled to have a bladder control issue.  (See Keisha's remarkable story here.)

We've been finding Keisha's bedding damp in the morning, and even outside sometimes she can't get up in time to pee.  Her one remaining back leg has hip displaysia, which has gotten worse in the past year, so her mobility is more and more constrained.

Enter Kodiak's special bed.  I took this photo of Keisha on the bed tonight, just when we put the dogs up.  Now the trick will be seeing if we can get her to STAY on the bed.  She may have limited mobility, but when she wants to move, she can!

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Fall in the Northern Rockies

Alayne and I took two of our blind mares, Lena and Nikki, and their sidekick Lonesome George out to pasture this morning.  As we turned around to head back to Lena's Barn, we noticed this beautiful sight -- the cottonwoods in brilliant gold colors, framing the house.  Fall definitely arrives early here in the Northern Rockies.

The house overlooks six of our blind horse pastures, spread across about 60 acres of the property.  From the living room we can easily see what's going on in those pastures. 

A short while later Alayne and I moved a big, 300-gallon water tank from one of the horse corrals to the 30-acre pasture where the sighted horses stay.  During the summer these horses use an irrigation ditch that runs across the pasture for water.  However, at this time of year the flow in irrigation ditches becomes unpredictable -- and the irrigation "season" ends Oct. 1 anyway.  So we decided it was time to set up the 300-gallon tank for the sighted horses just to be safe.  (As it turned out, there was plenty of water in the ditch today.)  That's Alayne in the tractor, moving the tank.  There's hardly anything you can't move with a tractor!

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Pappy Comes Home from the Hospital -- Again

After two days in the hospital being treated for aspiratory pneumonia, Pappy came home to the ranch this evening.  He seemed just a little put out with me for having left him at the hospital for a couple of days.  (Animals do know how to lay guilt trips, don't they?)  But once Pappy got settled in his favorite spot -- the back seat of our Chevy pick-up -- he decided to forgive me. 

Ever the willing chauffeur, I drove this wonderful old Shepherd back to the sanctuary.  As we wound our way up Montana Highway 200 along the Blackfoot River, he alternately looked out the windows at the passing scenery or snoozed.  It's about an hour drive from Missoula, so he had plenty of time to do both.

Pappy will need to stay on a daily antibiotic for the rest of his life to prevent the aspiratory pneumonia from recurring.  It's called Orbax and he'll be on a full strength 68 mg dose for two weeks, then we'll cut that in half and monitor how he does.  Since we can't restore complete nerve function to his larynx, he will continue to ingest food and fluid in his lungs.  The drug should help keep it from developing into pneumonia. 

I took the photos of Pappy this evening at the clinic right after putting him in the truck.  There next to Pappy on the bed in the first photo is the box of Kodiak's ashes I also picked up at the clinic.  So in their own way, both old dogs came home this evening.