Skye Cheats Death, Yet Again

                    

      This is the actual dead copperhead snake. It is of moderate size and is an adult.

         This muscular snake shows evidence of having had a recent meal.

As regular readers of my blogs may know, we have a border collie named Skye who patrols certain forested areas of the farm, and then returns to the other animals. She can be described as a bit of an eager beaver.  Perhaps she still remembers being a rescue and feels she needs to earn her keep, although she became a family member with a full retirement plan here, long ago.

               On the 18th, Skye performed her normal patrol and on return to the barn area, she carried a moderately sized adult copperhead snake.  My husband asked her to put it down so that he could ensure that it was dead.  Next, he examined Skye who had a clear bite mark on her muzzle that was continuously dripping blood.  He called my cellular phone and I quickly came down to the barn with the the correct dose of liquid diphenhydramine and an injection of broad spectrum antibiotic, appropriate for a canine of this weight. When I saw her and gave those, I also assessed her for pain and for whether any swelling endangered her airway. I also had epinephrine with me, although in all honesty, I would have had to have called to ask the vet the appropriate canine dose, because off the top of my head, I don't remember.  It was only when I had done those things, I notified the vet of what had happened and the treatment we had provided.  We were to continue the diphenhydramine liquid in the dose we had used every 6 hours for 24 hours, and then every eight hours until today, when she would be assessed by a vet.

               How did we know HOW to treat a copperhead snake bite in a dog ?   Because nine years ago, in July, the very same dog was attacked by a large copperhead in the fenced area just outside her kennel room. That time, her head swelled to more than twice its normal size and she was drooling as well as bleeding. 

              I hope this is the last time we encounter a copperhead bite, but it's likely not to be.  This farm is surrounded by acres and acres of thick forest and is an ideal habitat for them.  Sometimes, they leave the forest and come to the cleared area, probably seeking food.

              This is also the last year under federal law, in which farmers may purchase injectable antibiotics to have on hand on their farms for a variety of species of animals.  In future, I will need to ask the vet to provide a prescription for these items with directions for treatment of various animal species.

               I am also considering having the trees around the kennel cleared except for the large oaks which provide dogs shade.  I am also going to ask the farm vet whether snake repellent of any type might help keep the copperheads away from the kennel where they are a hazard to the dogs and to us.

              This is also a danger to the horses, who could suffocate if bitten by a copperhead on the muzzle.  In the past, the black snakes here ate the copperheads, but this does not seem to be happening as much as it once did.

               Because human beings have a much more complex neurological system, a copperhead bite requires immediate expert medical care often including antivenin.  A few years ago, a number of people in surrounding counties were bitten by copperheads while walking on their decks or gardening, and a few of them logged time in an ICU.   Fortunately for us, dogs have less complex neurological systems and according to our vet, have a better record of recovery without copperhead antivenin than with it, and so both times, we were fortunate enough that she has recovered.  A smaller dog, or perhaps an elderly or very young dog would not be so lucky.

This is my prior blog post from another one of my blogs,(https://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com ) concerning Skye's prior copperhead bites, nine years ago.

 

https://rationalpreparedness.blogspot.com/2014/07/important-information-in-canine.html/2014/07/important-information-in-canine.html

More info at:

 

 http://lifeaftertherescues.blogspot.com/2014/07/copperhead-snake-bites-in-dogs.html

 

 

The Story of Brielle

 

                                                                         Brielle

            About fourteen years ago, a family restaurant opened in our very rural neck of the woods. Their specialty was barbecue sandwiches, but they had a broad menu, and our kids loved to eat there.  This was within about the year after our son Daniel had died, and I was making great efforts to do things as a family as I knew a couple of the kids had been having a hard time, and needed to get off the farm and have some family time. This also helped a bit because there had been a family restaurant there prior to this one, and Daniel had come with us, so it felt comfortable to be in the same building with the family.  In addition to the barbecue, the present restaurant made fantastic burgers and homemade coleslaw.  The coleslaw was so fantastic, I used to place some of it on my burger.  For a time, we tried to eat there about once a week, and our kids came to know the menu by heart.

             In addition to serving the farmers, the farm families, the occasional home  builder, and providing a place to have a date night for local couples, the restaurant owner also fed some feral cats who hung around the dumpster at the restaurant. You couldn't blame them. Even the cats knew that it was the best food for many miles.

              It was tough for the owner to prepare such a large menu and to procure and then prepare a lot of the food each week. We learned that he chose and picked up most of the food he used at the Sam's Club which was about fifty minutes from there. He loved what he was doing, but he soon found that he had no time for anything else.  Eventually, he and one of the waitresses decided to get married. He decided that he wished to close the restaurant and try something new.

               Of course,  we were disappointed,  but we understood.  By then, he had already agreed to let us bring one of the cats home because he had not had time to take her to a vet, and we'd had concerns about her.  My eldest son named her Brielle.  In the weeks that followed, before the restaurant closed, other people took each of the cats, mostly for their barns, and so none of them would starve when the restaurant closed.

               Brielle was a smaller cat that most. She had medium long hair and a strange meow. The vet thought she might have suffered some significant nutritional deprivation as a kitten and that she may have some neurological issues.  For a semi-feral cat, she was a strange one. She was a picky eater, and was often demanding. If a human petted her, she didn't like him to go, and she would knead your lap, arm or anything else while sinking her claws into the legs of your jeans. She also drooled pretty profusely when she was petted. She also didn't drink a lot of water unless you gave her a really large water dish, the kind you might give to a German Shepherd. It was as if she intended to conserve water unless she knew she had a large supply.

              We had a large two story garage/art studio built on the farm, in part, to provide a place for our eldest son, who was studying at the university to become a sculptor, a place to work. When the rooms were completed, and the welding machines moved in, Brielle didn't want to be anywhere else.  She especially liked doing what looked like cat ballet on the large beams within the building. The building had lots of nooks and crannies and she would explore the building for hours. At night, after she was fed, we would close her into the office which stayed warm, and had food and water for her. During Winter, we placed a heated mat under her cat bed. We even had a painting of a cat, that looked like her, up in the office.

               When our son was working in the building, he often opened one of the garage styled doors, and out she would go. She enjoyed walks in the forest and usually returned at dusk when he would lock up the building, and leave a light on in one of the rooms.  Brielle had the strange habit of stalking much larger animals. There were often deer at the edge of the forest grazing near the building, and she would size them up as if preparing for a take down.  Once, our eldest son saw her in a fight with one of the ravens that lives on the farm. Brielle was hurt during this interaction and had to have the vet remove one of her long canine teeth from one side of her mouth, which had been broken and seemed to be infecting. She eventually healed, but was more careful with groundhogs and other animals afterward.

               When our eldest son got married and left the farm, Brielle had to adapt to life without his working there. Since there was a no pet policy where he and his wife were living, she could not come with him. In some ways, remaining where she was familiar and had lots of space may actually have been better. She saw him occasionally when he returned to work there occasionally, or to pick up something he'd left there, or used rarely.  The rest of us tried to make up the difference by visiting often, and by opening the building so she could wander on days when we might be out with the horses or other animals. She liked being a part of the action.   She even adapted and came to terms with another semi-feral cat, Albinus who came to live in the barn with the horses. He liked Brielle, but she had to be convinced that he was a worthy overseer of another part of the farm.

                As Brielle aged, she became thinner and we were concerned that we could not monitor her food and water intake with her being in the art studio, and so during Winter, we brought her up to stay in our eldest son's bedroom. At first, she was delighted. It was nice and warm, and surely he would return with his wife, since his bed was made and his bookcase was full and his furniture was there. Sometimes he did, and over the next five years, he told her about the new little daughter he and his wife had, and then a couple of years later, about the new baby son. Brielle met them a couple of times, but they seemed to move a little too quickly for her liking.

                I still let her dance in the rafters in the art studio sometimes during good weather, but in the last year or so, she became more content to remain in our eldest son's room, and receive visits from the rest of us. Sometimes, I would open the window and she would sit by the screen enjoying the sun. Sometimes I would let her play outside, and often, she and I would go for a walk with a light leash.  Last year, during one wandering episode, she became lost and a neighbor called us to pick her up. We knew that her days of wandering alone safely were over.

                Matthew, also one of our sons died suddenly in November not long after he had turned 32. Although Matthew had not been her human, she took this hard. We had to work to get her to eat and drink, and I spent a lot of time with her. It was almost as if she had decided to go with him.

                 Consultations with the vet yielded that she had been experiencing urinary tract infections and hematuria. This was treated for a time and she seemed to improve. We did this for several months and then one day, three months to the day after Matthew's passing, Brielle refused to eat or drink. She lay peacefully on her bed, which I moved to our eldest son's bed.  I spent the day with her, and our grandson was also in attendance.  That evening, after he went home, she peacefully went to sleep with my sitting beside her.

                  Even when a beloved cat lives a decent lifespan, their loss is sad and difficult. She was an important fixture and personality here for so long.  My hope is that she located Matthew and Daniel in Heaven and that they are caring for her now.  Thank you for being our cat, Brielle.  I wouldn't have missed it for anything.  We will always remember you, and we will always love you.

 

             

The Long Life of Zelina

      

 

    Just after our son Daniel died, a friend of my daughter's gave a gift of two black Labrador puppies. He thought that puppies full of so much energy and love would help her, and the rest of us, through such a difficult chapter in our lives. One was male, and one was female and so our daughter named them Sebastian and Zelina. Since our daughter was a senior in college at the time, I had to pinch hit quite a bit with their toilet training, feeding, vet visits, and then their visits to the vet for spaying and for neutering.  I didn't really mind because they were dear puppies, and because our black lab/Weimaraner mix Mark was elderly and was dying, and because it almost seemed to me that these puppies were here to ease the pain of Mark's impending passage.  Mark passed quietly not too many weeks after he was introduced to the pups. It was as if he too, knew we would be in good hands.

              Sebastian and Zelina enjoyed life on the farm with alpacas, horses, chickens, guineas, cats, and managed to dodge the copperhead snakes.  They enjoyed water, running, and the other dogs we had here. I can never remember their being inflexible or difficult with any other animal.  Time on our farm surrounded by forests passed quickly as it always does.   Our daughter bought a home in the same rural place, but works a great deal and so she thought that Sebastian and Zelina should stay here where they were well adapted. Before long, our daughter had a new baby and her hands were full, and so we were glad the two black labs had remained here with our other dogs.

               In May, 2015 it was hotter than usual and humid a bit more early than it usually is.  One morning I found Sebastian lying outside the kennel,  He was febrile. Long story short, the vet believed that he likely had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and so she started doxycycline.  I was actually more concerned than I would be for a lot of illnesses, because he seemed truly frightened and possibly in pain. It looked to me as if we had recognized his illness too late and started him on medication too late in the course of the illness.  I told Sebastian that if he were to die, that I would take good care of his sister Zelina for the rest of her life.  He took me up on that, and died rather quickly that morning, never responding to the doxycycline.

              Zelina had been tightly bonded to her litter mate, but had no choice but to make friends with the other dogs we had here. She was easy going, pleasant and kind, and we were pleased that her life continued long after her brother's had ended.

              This summer I realized that Zelina was thirteen years old, which is a pretty good age for a large dog. She had no discomfort with regard to her joints or paws which is so often a problem with aged large dogs. Her hips seemed fine.  Usually, we start them on glucosamine and chondroitin, but she was still jumping and running well without discomfort. I did notice that she was thinner this spring than is desirable, and so she was wormed as per our farm's protocol.  I also noticed that her gums looked sore, and so I gently brushed her teeth and gums using a diluted .15% solution of chlorhexidine gluconate, which made quite a difference. I decided to watch those gums in the future and perhaps brush the gums more often.  Zelina also began to get gray hair on her face, which I have seen on these dogs, often in the last year of their lives.  I resolved to spend more time with her, and tell her more often how lucky we had been to have her as a gift.   We feed our elderly dogs twice daily here, and so, this afternoon when my husband went to feed the older dogs we found her. Zelina had walked in from the outside to her indoor kennel, and collapsed and died when she was about halfway on her bed. Her eyes were open and judging from the absence of rigor, she had not been dead long. I suspect she had a myocardial infarction at about age thirteen and a half.

             For a large labrador, thirteen and a half is not a bad run, although I am still very upset.  Each of the animals here brings us joy, but they also mark the fact that time is passing quickly.  Our children have grown and there are little grandchildren who visit the farm now.  I am comforted by the fact that Zelina will see Sebastian and the other friends she had while she was here, but I am saddened by the passage of a loving and dear canine friend who was happy to see me whether I was feeding her, or gently brushing her teeth and then gently squirting her gums with nasty tasting mouthwash.

               I'll miss you Zelina, and so will the rest of us.  Please tell Sebastian and the others we miss and love them all.

            

    

 

 

  Sebastian's story

  https://lifeaftertherescues.blogspot.com/2015/05/memories-of-sebastian.html       

The Last Years of Sweet Penny

           

                              Penny was a lemon and white, as seen in the far left corner

 

    Almost every year, hunters decollar and dump elderly dogs who can no longer hunt effectively, or sometimes they dump a dog with a medical problem. We do our best to give them whatever food and nutrition they require, and with a vet sympathetic to animal rescuers, we get them whatever immunizations and care is necessary.  For a time, we do look for the prior owner, just in case the dog was lost and the collar broke off. The pound is helpful with this, and then ultimately issues us adoption paperwork if the original owner is never located.

               Four years ago, in the Fall, a female bicolored brown hound was left at our gates. Because she could smell our other dogs and went to check them out, she allowed us to care for her, although she was timid and showed indications of being fearful of human beings.  The vet thought that she was extremely old and that she had given birth to many litters of puppies over the years. She received a rabies shot, routine immunizations and started heartworm preventive, which she tolerated well. She ate well and within a few months had gained the weight the vet thought was optimal. Within about six months she was running with our dogs and acting as if she'd spent a lifetime here.  Because the vet thought she could be as old as sixteen, we chose not to subject her to general anesthesia to be spayed.  Instead, we kept her in our professional kennel with other female dogs and watched her carefully when we took her out on a leash.

             In 2020, the vet believed that she was likely eighteen years of age or perhaps even older and that she could pass at any time. We tried not to think about this much, and it was also hard to believe especially since she was so excited when she was fed, or when we came to play with her.  Because she was so old, we decided to replace her bed with a comfortable and extra padded one in advance of Christmas, when we would normally replace any beds that required it.

              This morning, she was happy to see us, and was up while her water bucket was scrubbed and the water changed. She began to eat as we left the kennel.  This afternoon, when we came to do afternoon, and evening care, and to turn off the radio which runs during the day, she was quiet. She seemed stretched out and comfortable in her new bed. A quick look told us that she hadn't eaten much breakfast this morning. When we took a closer look, the quiet sleeping dog on the new bed wasn't breathing. Some time this afternoon, Penny had passed.  Her eyes are peacefully closed. There is no mess, and she isn't curled up as if she were cold.  As much as this was an extremely elderly dog whose passing was expected, we are sad. She loved her life almost as much as we enjoyed having her here.  Godspeed Penny.  Thank you for staying here and for taking the chance of coming here that September day four years ago.  You could have run away. You could have stayed at the gate waiting for the hunter who left you here, but you were a bright girl. You knew we would care for you. We will bury you and have a farm funeral tomorrow.  Penny, I love you and I am truly going to miss you.

 

                  

Henrietta "Boo-Boo" Hen and the End of an Era

             

                                            Eventually, as Winter came, a fitted tarp was secured to

                               the top of the kennel to prevent their flying out, and being caught by predators.

 

 

 

           Henrietta, "Boo-Boo" was a chick who hatched one summer from an unplanned breeding between one of my particularly speedy and beautiful quick moving Bantam girls, and a much larger Rhode Island Red rooster.  Unplanned, successful hatchings are rare, in part because some of the chickens aren't particularly good mothers and also because the temperature variant even in summer can be broad.  Most fertilized eggs, unless we incubate them do not result in a successful chick here.  Henrietta was one in a million. 

                Because she had been hatched at a time of year that was unusual, and was smaller than the other hens of her type, she tended to be picked on. She frequently received boo-boos, and they seemed to attack her comb, which is quite vascular and can bleed a great deal. Eventually I decided that the older girls were dangerous to her, and I decided to place her in a different hen house with a young rooster who could protect her.  The two happily played house together for years in their own pen, and survived attempts to get them by coyotes, raccoons, young foxes and even a possum. Each day, Henrietta produced a perfect brown egg, which I collected and usually used each day, mostly because she was so proud of the egg.

                After about thirteen years, her mate died, early on a Fall morning.  I wasn't sure what to do for Henrietta.  Eventually, I placed an elderly rooster, a brother of her former spouse, in the pen with her, and although she seemed relieved, I don't think it was quite the same. The following year, her second mate died of old age.

                By then, she was no longer producing eggs and I thought that perhaps she could live with a couple of girls who were also getting on in years. Unlike some farms, I do not cull the chickens when they no longer produce eggs.  It costs me little to allow them to live out their lifespans.  The hens did not welcome Henrietta, again seeming jealous.

                Eventually, I placed her with a Lavender Orpington rooster who, although he was beautiful and a bit vain, didn't seem to want to bother her.  He kept her safe, and she seemed grateful for it.  Recently, at what would normally have been about two years beyond her normal life expectancy, she got wobbly. I looked at her closely and decided that she probably had the end of life pneumonia that takes most of them in the end. I decided to provide one round of antibiotic, one because she had a roommate and I wished to keep him healthy, and two because she would not be eaten and would not be producing eggs and so the antibiotic would not cause food chain issues. She did seem to improve, and was eating and drinking well the following day. Several days after, one morning, I found that she had died while sleeping in what looked like a comfortable position.  Her latest rooster friend was most upset, not understanding how very old she really was, and how she had cheated death so many times in one way or another.

               Thank you God, for the gift of this sweet, gentle, long lived girl. She was the very model of gratitude,  Please keep her for me, until I get home to the farm in the sky, and I can resume my duties.

                 Although this is an ending, it is also a beginning. A couple of weeks after Henrietta's passing, I put the young Lavender Orpington rooster nearby five young Asian black hens I had bought.  In about fifteen weeks, he will begin his task as their protector.

    

In Memory of Sweet Sheila

This is Sheila, during the Spring of her last year.

                       A couple of years after Daniel died, a new family moved in to a tall farmhouse, about four miles from here. They had a number of children and were determined, just as we had been, to provide their children with positive experiences with animals, and skills as to how to care for a variety of them.  The fields adjacent to their home, at that time, were filled with brown sheep.  A few times that week, I drove past the home while on errands.  On one of the times I drove past, I noticed a smaller sheep walking along the road, about a quarter mile from the field of sheep itself. I routinely keep a new leash in my glove compartment, which is usually used to rescue lost dogs I see from time to time, in our rural area. This time I  parked at the side of the country road, approached the sheep, and wrapped the leash around his neck and gently secured it while talking gently to him. He happily followed me back to the house with the sheep, which is where I had imagined he'd come from. The lady who answered the door was watching children as the mother had just come home from the hospital with a new baby. She struggled to find a leash so that I could have mine returned as she relocated the sheep.

                  When I next had occasion to talk to the family and ask them how the mom and new baby were doing, I learned that it was the mother-in-law who had collected the sheep that day. The man thanked me for returning the sheep and asked me if I would like to take home a couple of the sheep.  I wouldn't normally have wished to take on two sheep, but with several of our kids in college, we had recently decided not to breed alpacas any longer, and we thought Cammie, our youngest alpaca, might enjoy a young sheep as a surrogate baby. We were happy to take on a second sheep because ideally, animals should always be housed with at least one other of their own species.

                  The man charged us a nominal fee for the young male sheep, and the same for his mother.   He told us that they were Cotswold sheep, in fact, they were even rarer than that. They were Black Cotswold sheep.  He was parting with them because both of them tended to be escapists, and because he had more than enough animals suitable for breeding.   We brought them home, in a regular car with tarpaulins put down,  to pastures set up for our alpacas, and to our family of about five alpacas from our original herd, and never had any challenges with their attempting to escape. I later decided that both Sheila, and her son, were brighter than normal sheep and that this is why they had tended to challenge restrictions in their original home.  At first, they were kept separately from the alpacas, and then after a suitable introduction and time spent to make sure everyone was well,  Sheila, the female sheep was housed with some alpacas. The younger male sheep, which we named Tesla for his superior intellect, was housed with Cammie, our prize alpaca.  Everyone got along well.

                 Almost ten years have passed since Sheila and her son came to live with us. They have been trouble free and gentle creatures, and great companions to our alpacas. As time went on, and our alpacas reached twenty to twenty-four years, one by one, most of the alpacas died.  This left more and more pasture and more solitude to Sheila.  Earlier this year when I was considering the routine worming that all animals on a farm should have considered, I realized that Sheila was already beyond normal life expectancy.  I realized how lucky we have been to have this lovely sweet sheep with us each day. She was able to see her son Tesla daily, as part of his pasture was adjacent to hers.

                Sheila continued a calm and peaceful life until a day last week, when she seemed a little slower than usual to rise as I approached.  We made sure we spent plenty of time with her that day. The following day, she had Cheyne-Stokes respirations, and she died peacefully later that morning, while we were present.

               Sheila was the recipient of a typical farm funeral just outside the paddock with all of the animals, including her son Tesla present.   We were so lucky to have this dear creature as a companion to us and to our other animals.

Your Pets Cannot Give You Coronavirus

               

                This is Ranger, who was sheltered for a time at the shelter mentioned.


  It has come to my attention that in the midst of coronavirus that in some places, particularly Southern California, that people are abandoning their pets in droves.  Although some early coverage stated incorrectly,

 Your dog, cat, rabbit or other house pet cannot give the COVID-19 coronavirus to you.


All that relinquishing him with do, in these times, is to ensure his euthanization.  Many, many pets have been euthanized during this time because of the disparity between the number of animals being relinquished and the number being adopted.

                 Please keep your animals. 

   If you wish to adopt an animal then contact your local pound or find our when East Valley Animal Services is open again. They always have lots of beautiful dogs and animals waiting for homes, and they euthanize many. 

  http://www.laanimalservices.com/shelter-search/east-valley/