Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary

I May Be Blind, But I Know That's Not A Carrot

Alayne took these photos this evening while I was giving blind Darby, a recent arrival from Washington state, her medications.  Darby is on an antibiotic for a lingering infection from wounds she received before she came here.  She was beat up and cut up, and you can see some of the scars and scabs on her chest ... they are all over her.  Most are healing just fine, but she's got one under her jaw that continues to get infected.

The drug is sulfamethoxazole trimethoprim, which is a quite a mouthful, so everyone calls it 'trimeth sulfa' (yes, that's backwards for some reason).  We put 10 tablets in a big 60 cc syringe, fill it with water, let the tablets dissolve, then squirt it into the back of her mouth.  In this first photo I'm letting her feel and smell the syringe so she knows what's coming ... but you don't want too much advance warning or they start thinking about how to avoid it!  (Notice ears back.  Hmm.)

In this shot I've just put the tip of the syringe inside her mouth at the back of her lips.  Darby is very good about taking her medication, although sometimes she can become a bit of a 'head tosser'  -- and then you've got a moving target to hit.  Once I get the tip in her mouth, I start pressing down on the plunger to begin squirting the dissolved trimeth sulfa.  Some horses -- blind Chance, for instance -- have developed a knack for pushing their tongue against the syringe tip, effectively blocking the flow.  (Clever, huh?)  That means moving the syringe around rapidly, up and down and back and forth, to break the 'tongue dam.'

And then, once I've got the fluid going in, I push the syringe farther in towards the back of her mouth, and at the same time with my other hand I push her head up.  This makes it harder for her to spit the fluid out and more likely she'll swallow it right away.  (That's the theory, anyway.)  This is what you see me doing in this final photo.

Elapsed time:  Under 10 seconds.

After getting her dose, Darby got her dinner.  That's what blind Cactus Jack in the background is waiting for, too!

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After The Bath, A Treat

Alayne and I gave blind Brynn, now 5 months old, a bath this afternoon ... well, more like a shower with a hose.  Brynn has an ectopic ureter, which means one kidney is sending urine not to her bladder but instead to her uterus.  (Ectopic ureters can actually end up taking urine to the strangest places, even to the intestines.)  As a result, she leaks urine constantly, and it dribbles down her backside and onto her rear legs. 

In warmer months this wasn't too much of a problem, but now that winter is here (at least here in Montana!), keeping her clean is difficult.  Fortunately we have hot and cold running water at Beauty's Barn, so we could hose her down outside with very warm water, then take her into the heated medical stall to scrub down her hindquarters.  We finished with a warm water rinse outside, then took her back into the medical stall and left her there to dry. 

I took this photo right after we got done.  Brynn was not very happy with our efforts and threw quite the temper tantrum.  Ordinarily she is very placid and calm and sweet, but she did not want us messing with her backside today, and she let us know it in no uncertain terms!  In any case, we got through it, and Alayne was giving her some grain as a post-bath treat.

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What? Wait For Christmas?!?

The wonderful folks at West Paw Design in Bozeman, Montana -- who make our favorite dog beds among other great pet products -- kindly sent us a huge box of donated goodies yesterday.  Blind Goldie with the incredible nose (see Monday's post) went absolutely crazy because she KNEW there were soft toys with squeakers inside that box!  She kept trying to rip the box open, using her teeth and her paws, whining and barking with anticipation.  We couldn't leave her unsupervised because we knew she'd shred the box and have everything scattered all over the house.  (Been there, done that.)

I took the photo today after we had opened the box.  That's Goldie eyeing (well, really "nosing") the contents ... she can hardly believe how many things are in there.  And in the background is Bailey, who's waiting for Goldie to get into the box and start dishing out the goodies onto the floor.  He's seen this routine before. 

We told Goldie we were going to wait until Christmas -- oh no! -- to hand out the presents, but we did give her as a consolation prize the red bone toy you see in the photo.  She had the squeaker ripped out in a matter of minutes and was back looking for another toy. 

Sigh.

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Don't Mind Me While I Groom You

Somewhere along the way in the past few months, blind Callie the Dachshund decided she'd be a personal groomer for the other dogs.  She loves to give their backs a careful going-over, licking them clean.  Oddly, she ONLY does backs ... nothing else, please.  And she focuses only on the big dogs, for some reason, like Helen our blind 105-lb Rottweiler or Kenai our blind Lab.

I took this photo yesterday afternoon when I saw Callie busily grooming Kenai again in our dining room.  (Well, it's more 'dog room' than 'dining room,' as you can see.)  Callie gets very intense and focused on this, and she will groom away as long as the other dog lies still.

In the background is Widget, sleeping as usual.  (Have you ever seen an "action" shot of Widget?)  Underneath the cot is all the stuffing from a soft toy that Kenai shredded yesterday morning while lying on that same cot.  (It's odd what you notice in your own house AFTER you take a photo!)

The bedding piled on top of the Rubbermaid tub is for Bailey the miniature Dachshund.  Because he has some incontinence "issues," we have to keep fresh bedding on hand to change out a couple of times a day.

(An aside:  I just ran the blog spellchecker and it helpfully suggested replacing "Rottweiler" with "Rototiller."  Hmm.)

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There Must Be Food In Here Somewhere

Blind Goldie, who has one of the best noses in the nose business, convinced herself this weekend there was still food in the stack of empty dog dishes.  She kept jumping up on the green Rubbermaid tub (where we store the dry dog food) so she could push the dishes around, hoping (I think) to knock them over and scatter the kibble all over the floor. 

At first I thought she was imagining things, because there was no food in the top dishes.  I said, "Goldie, what are you up to?  There's nothing there!"  But because she wouldn't give up -- even after I went to get the camera and take this photo -- I finally went over to check the dishes.  Sure enough, the fourth dish down still had kibble left in it.

Her nose is really phenomenal, and she rarely ever "misses" when her nose tells her something she wants is there.  She can get obsessive/compulsive about this, and we've resorted to "hiding" (we like to think) toys, treats and other objects on top of bookshelves, inside closets, and in cabinets.  She'll just stand there, outside a closet door, and bark and bark until we either give in (hmm) or until we give up and take the desired object and put it in one of the other buildings. 

We've read that the typical dog has about 220 million smell receptors in its nose, compared to about 5 million receptors in a person.  We figure Goldie must have twice the normal number for a dog!

(Click on photo for larger image.)