ohmidog!

All of the dogs at Rolling Dog Farm are beloved.

But Blind Patti — it’s fair, if not gramatically correct to say — was beloveder than most.

The eyeless shepherd mix, one of the dogs featured in our “Travels with Ace” calendar, passed away Nov. 20.

“Our beautiful blind girl Patti died tonight, just a few minutes before 7 p.m. She passed away here at home peacefully, lying on a big soft fleece bed in the dog room, covered with a fleece blanket,” Rolling Dog’s Steve Smith reported from the sanctuary’s home in New Hampshire.

Patti came to Rolling Dog Farm — back when it was still in Montana — from Spokane Animal Control.

When she arrived in 2003, one of her eyes was missing, and the other was solid white. A scar ran across her forehead from one eye to the other, and suspicions were that she had been struck with either an ax, hatchet or shovel.

At the Spokane shelter, she’d been scheduled to be euthanized her second week there, but an employee felt sorry for her, checked her out of the facility the day before she was to be put down, and tried to find her a home.

Rolling Dog Farm (called Rolling Dog Ranch at the time) was contacted and agreed to take her in, and another rescue group agreed to transport the blind and battered dog to Ovando, Montana, where the sanctuary, until last year, was headquartered.

She was thin and had a ragged coat when she arrived in Montana, with one seemingly empty eye socket. When Rolling Dog Farm took her to their vet, the remnants of an eyeball were found in the open eye socket. They cleaned it out, and sewed the eye shut. The other eye, which she couldn’t see out of and which was clearly causing her pain, was removed.

After that, Patti blossomed, according to the profile of her on the Rolling Dog Farm website:

“Even though she can’t see, she still thinks of herself as a guard dog of sorts. She stands at the fence and barks if she thinks anything, or anyone, is out there and we ought to know about it. Now plump, her coat shines. (At 80 pounds, she’s on a diet!) She loves to ‘mix it up’ with Steve … woofing and wrestling and showing him just how tough she is.

“Her favorite activity is to climb on to Steve’s lap while he tries to read the paper. Not content to merely lay on his lap, Patti insists on rolling over upside down, feet up in the air, tummy ready to be scratched. And if she doesn’t get the attention Patti thinks she deserves, she begins squirming.”

I first met Patti when I visited the sanctuary in Montana in 2007, and I ran into her again when, during the year Ace and I traveled the country, we stopped in at Rolling Dog Farm’s new home in Lancaster, New Hampshire.

About a year after that, this past October, Smith noticed Patti wasn’t herself. A series of trips to veterinarians followed, and what was at first thought to be one cancerous mass turned out to be a rapidly increasing series of them. About four weeks ago, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer called hemangiosarcoma.

They did their best to make what would turn out to be her last month a comfortable one.

“She was one of our stars, a favorite of volunteers, employees, visitors and media over the years,” Steve, who runs the sanctuary with his wife, Alayne Marker,  noted.

“Only four dogs have been with us as long as Patti — Widget, Goldie, Cedar and Libby. So she was a fixture not only of the sanctuary, but of our hearts as well.”

The day after she died, Steve, who I’d been exchanging emails with regarding making Rolling Dog Farm a beneficiary of sales of our “Travels with Ace” calendar, opened up a link I sent him to the calendar page.

The calendar documents some of the memorable moments from the year Ace and I spent traveling the U.S. — including our stop at Rolling Dog Farm. In addition to receiving 50 percent of profits from the sales, Rolling Dog Farm is featured one month, and among the photos I used — though I didn’t know of her condition — was one of Patti.

“… On that page you’ll see a photo of me with blind Patti that almost made me cry,” Steve recounts on the Rolling Dog Farm blog. “When John sent me the link, I clicked on it, the page opened … and there was the photo.”

The photo shows Steve and Patti, face to face, and I like to think it comes close to capturing the essence of what Patti, blind as she was, far more eloquently depicted than I ever could.

As Steve puts it:

“She showed us how animals are immensely capable of forgiving — if not forgetting — what people have done to them. “

Three years after we first met them at their home in Montana, we hooked up with some old friends Monday — in New Hampshire.

We reunited with Travis, who, due to a rare disease, has a jaw that’s fused shut; with Patti, who lost both of her eyes when she was assaulted with a shovel; and with Soba (above), whose neurological disorder, known as cerebellar hypoplasia, makes getting from one place to another an arduous task as she wobbles, flails and jerks about. 

Oh, and we reconnected with some human friends, too –  Steve Smith and Alayne Marker, who this year faced an arduous task of their own — moving their Rolling Dog Ranch, a sanctuary for disabled and unwanted animals, from a sprawling spread in golden Montana to much greener pastures in Lancaster, New Hampshire.

I first met the couple in 2007, during a stint as a visiting professor at the University of Montana. 

I visited their ranch to see the work they were doing with animals– most of them blind, all of them deemed useless, too handicapped to have a life of any quality and destined to be put down. 

Rolling Dog Ranch in Ovando was a beautiful place — in part because of its setting on 160 acres under Montana’s big sky, in larger part because it showed those doing that deeming that they were as wrong as they could be. 

Steve and Alayne bought the ranch in Montana while both still worked in Seattle for Boeing — he in the communications department, she as a lawyer. They’d planned to take early retirement and start a sanctuary for disabled animals. They got tired of waiting for their dream, though, and ditched their jobs.

They packed up their own dogs and moved to Montana. They named the ranch Rolling Dog, after the way their own dogs gleefully rolled in the grass there every time they visited. 

The ranch opened, slightly earlier than planned, in 2000, when Steve and Alayne were asked to take in a blind horse. Seven years later, it served as home to 80 animals – 40 dogs, 10 cats and 30 horses, 25 of which are blind. It is funded through donations from the public.

After 10 years in Montana, though, the couple decided to head east. The ranch’s remoteness, Montana’s harsh winters, difficulties finding employees, rising gas prices, and the hour-plus drives to the closest cities of Missoula and Helena were among the reasons for relocating.  

On the Internet, they scoped out possible new locations for the sanctuary, and, after finding one they liked in New Hampshire, just outside of Lancaster, bought it and began making the necessary improvements — like ramps at all the entrances — all while choreographing what would be a complex move.

There were tons of supplies and equipment to be shipped across the country; ten horses, all but two of them blind; 35 dogs with assorted disabilities, the five barn cats and five tons of Montana hay — so that the horses could make a gradual transition to New Hampshire hay and grass.

“It went about as good as you could expect,” Steve said. “The dogs just did wonderfully. There were some people saying it would be too hard on the animals, but what people forget is that these animals have already been through a lot, and that they came to us from all over the country. After coping with something like losing your vision, it’s not a problem to travel to New Hampshire.”.

Altogether, it took 17 trips. Steve toted seven dogs across country; Alayne took five, including Soba.

In Lancaster, they’re only three miles from town and a veterinary clinic. They started taking in new animals in May, including Fuzzy, a blind terrier from Louisiana who arrived the day before my visit.

A sweet little bundle, he seems as happy as he can be, and — not for the first time on this trip — I had the urge to take on a second dog.

He was small enough that he could squeeze in with Ace in the back seat. And, like all the animals at Rolling Dog Ranch, he seems to have adapted magnificently to his — and this is the wrong word for it – disability. 

I stopped myself though, realizing that, cute as he is, he’ll probably get adopted easily. 

Rolling Dog Ranch, while it does make some of its animals available for adoption, is generally not a place where animals are briefly harbored until homes are found. 

Most often, it’s a place they come to live out the rest of their days. 

Dogs like Spinner, who was sound asleep on a bed outside the front door when Steve quietly leaned over and blew in the dog’s direction. 

Spinner — though both blind and deaf — woke up and walked straight to him, operating on scent alone.

Spinner has a rare condition known as restrictive strabithmus — her eyeballs don’t face forward, but point instead to the back of her head. Attempts to have it corrected surgically weren’t successful. 

Three other dogs I’d met in Montana back in 2007 all seemed to be faring well.

Soba, a collie mix, was one of two pups that came to Rolling Dog Ranch from a humane society in Iowa — both born to a mother who when pregnant, got distemper. As a result, some of her pups were born with the neurological disorder. It takes Soba a while to get where she’s going, almost as if each leg has a mind of its own. 

Patti, who lost both of her eyes after being attacked with a shovel, was as lovable as ever. She sniffed me out and leaned into me for a good scratching. 

And then there was Travis, who ended up at Rolling Dog Ranch after being left tied to a veterinary clinic door in Spokane. Vets determined that he had a rare muscular disease that went untreated for so long that his jaw fused shut. 

Surgeons could find no solution to his problem, other than feeding him through a tube inserted in his stomach. For months, Steve and Alayne fed him that way. Then one day they noticed that, with effort, he could stick his tongue out through a small opening between his teeth on one side of his mouth. 

They began feeding him with a bowl, running the food through a blender first so that he could slurp it up.

Malnourished and lethargic when he arrived, Travis became more and more lively. Three years later, I could see he has filled out some, and is probably one of the more energetic dogs at the ranch. 

A playful sort, Travis gets excited when visitors come, and tends to show off one of his tricks. He’ll go over to his water bowl, suck in a bunch of water, then approach the visitor and exhale, spraying him, elephant style, with water.  Seeing them all again was just as inspiring as meeting them the first time. 

And Rolling Dog Ranch’s new headquarters seems a perfect spot — from its setting amid 120 acres of rolling hills to the home’s large solarium that Steve and Alayne have devoted to the blind dogs. In the morning, it fills up with sunshine. 

The dogs can’t see it. 

But they can feel it.

(To read more “Travels with Ace,” click here.)

(To contribute to Rolling Dog Ranch, or learn more about its animals, visit its website: rollingdogranch.org.)

Rolling Dog Ranch, a Montana sanctuary for blind, deaf and maimed animals, is moving to New Hampshire.

Steve Smith and Alayne Marker, who founded the animal sanctuary 10 years ago after leaving jobs with Boeing in Seattle, say the 160-acre Montana ranch in Ovando will be put up for sale and that they will start moving horses, dogs and cats to a 120-acre ranch on the outskirts of Lancaster, N.H., on May 24..

Many in Montana are sad to see them go, according to The Missoulian

“My heart is breaking. I’m sobbing,”  Heather Montana of Helena, wrote in a comment on the Rolling Dog Ranch blog, where the news was broken. “Part of my love of being in Montana has been knowing you made this State a better place. You and Alayne are simply the best. Montana is losing the best. The people and volunteers are losing the best. It is crushing.”

(The slideshow above is from my visit there three years ago, which led to a five-part series on the ranch in the “Mutts” blog, now known as “Unleashed,” in the Baltimore Sun.)

Marker and Smith were among 10 recipients of the 2009 Humane Award presented by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals — and that was just the latest in a stream of tributes they have received.

Last Christmas, the ranch received the $20,000 first prize in an online National Shelter Challenge.

Rising gas prices and the hour-plus drives to the closest cities of Missoula and Helena are among the reasons for the move. In Lancaster, they’ll be three miles from the city and minutes from their veterinary clinic.

Smith said on the ranch’s blog that he expects employees and volunteers will be easier to find. “It was always a major problem for us to hire employees here, because most people did not want to move to such a remote area,” Smith said. “And of the few who were willing to move out here, most quickly tired of living so far out.”

Property was cheaper in New Hampshire, too, he noted, and there’s no sales tax or personal income tax.

“I think the day Alayne and I finally decided to get serious about moving, back in December, it was 22 below zero here and 24 above back there (in New Hampshire). We had just finished scooping poop that morning, our hands were frozen, and we thought, we’ve had enough of this kind of cold!” Smith wrote.

(Photo: Blind Madison, rolling in the grass at Rolling Dog Ranch’s new property in New Hamsphire/courtesy of Rolling Dog Ranch)

Army Sgt. Clay Rankin’s dog, Archie, was named 2009 Dog of the Year by the ASPCA.

Rankin suffered spinal injuries in Iraq, and Archie, who has been his service dog for four years, helps him cope with the aftermath of his war experience – post-traumatic stress disorder, physical challenges and difficulty with crowds, according to the Dallas Morning News.

“I think it was well deserved,” Rankin, who lives in West Virginia, said after accepting the award in New York City on behalf of Archie, an 8-year-old black Lab. “I think he’s Hero of the Year.”

“Archie’s loyalty and perseverance in helping Sgt. Rankin accomplish his daily tasks has allowed the veteran to regain his confidence and independence, move forward with his life and continue serving the country he loves,” the ASPCA noted.

Others recognized at the ASPCA awards ceremony were four men from Missouri who worked on the frontlines of the largest dog fighting raid in U.S. history; Alayne Marker, who along with her husband, Steve Smith, runs the Rolling Dog Ranch for disabled animals in Ovando, Montana; and Monica Plumb of Powhatan County, Virginia, who raised funds to purchase pet oxygen masks for fire departments across the country.

Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, and Operation Scarlet, a Shar Pei rescue group based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania have won the first round of voting — and $1,000 grants — in the The Animal Rescue Site’s $100,000 Shelter+ Challenge.

A total of $100,000 in grants will be awarded to shelters and rescue organizations in the 2009 Challenge, which wraps up July 26.

Members of the public can vote for their favorite shelters once a day at theanimalrescuesite.com.

This year, a grand prize of $20,000 will go to the top vote-getting organization. The second place winner will receive $5,000 and third place will receive $3,000. Honorable Mentions of $1,500 will go the fourth and fifth highest vote-getters.

“Because the voting lasts for fifteen weeks on our site, there is plenty of time left for new shelters to leap into the lead,” said Rosemary Jones, a spokesperson for The Animal Rescue Site. “We’ve also increased the number of grants, so there are more even opportunities for all types of Petfinder.com shelters and rescue organizations to receive anywhere from $1,000 weekly winner (for the most votes cast that week) to regional awards to the $20,000 grand prize.”

As of April 30, the top ten shelters in the Challenge in alphabetical order were: Best Friends Animal Society, Kanab, Utah; Days End Farm Horse Rescue; Lisbon, Maryland; Humane Society of Huron Valley, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation, Inc., Pittsville, Wisconsin; Oasis Sanctuary, Benson, Arizona; Operation Scarlet Inc, Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary, Ovando, Montana; SBU Cat Network, Stony Brook, New York; Seminole County Animal Services, Sanford, Florida; and Wynne Friends of Animals, Wynne, Arkansas.

“This is one of those adoptions that really makes us tingle,” write Steve Smith and Alayne Marker, friends of ohmidog! (you can find them in our blogroll) and proprietors of Rolling Dog Ranch, an animal sanctuary in Montana.

Rolling Dog Ranch, which I paid a visit to last fall, isn’t so much a temporary shelter for animals as it is a permanent home. Generally, the chronically sick, disabled, discarded and unwanted animals that end up there live out their lives on the 160 grassy acres near Ovando, Montana.

But every once in a while, caring folks adopt one, or, in this case, two.

When Cristene and Duane J. from Hauser Lake, Idaho (pictured above), came out to the ranch last month to adopt three-legged Kasha, they also met — and fell in love with — blind Shep. Back home with Kasha, they couldn’t stop thinking about Shep, a little German Shepherd from Afghanistan. 

It was only a couple of weeks before they emailed to say they wanted Shep, too. Recently, they took him home as well.

Shep is a former resident of the only animal shelter in Afghanistan. In May, he made it to Rolling Dog Ranch.

“Shep is a tiny thing for a German Shepherd, a result no doubt of chronic malnutrition when he was in the womb and then a puppy,” Smith writes in the latest ranch newsletter. ”Although the shelter in Kabul had been feeding him for the couple of months they had him before he came to us, he was still terribly thin when he arrived — so we can imagine how emaciated he was originally.” 

Cristene and Duane now have two RDR dogs at their home in northern Idaho, which includes 50 acres of fields, wetlands, forest, three acres of fenced lawn, and a lake for swimming.

Rolling Dog Ranch rescues and shelters disabled animals, giving every resident — be they blind dogs, blind horses, deaf dogs, blind cats, or animals with neurological and orthopedic disabilities — a second chance.

“Although these animals may have disabilities, they do not consider themselves handicapped. They just want to get on with life and enjoy themselves,” the Rolling Dog Ranch website says. And based on my visit last year, that seems to be exactly what they’re doing.

Here’s a slide show I put together then:

(Top photo: courtesy of Rolling Dog Ranch)