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Another day in the life...

W

WyomingRancher

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 7, 2007
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Location
Wyoming
My co-workers and I headed out this morning to fix fence.
Dogs.jpg


Along the way we ran into some content cows.
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We got to see some flowers...
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...And we saw a heifer calf eating a "highway flower." A few years ago I lost a bull to a plastic bag. He got severely impacted, and there was no way to save him. Luckily this calf spit the plastic out.
EatingHighwayFlower.jpg


The skies started chainging late afternoon.
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My dog Casey and I moved the cattle into shelter. Here she is moving the late pairs and yearlings.
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I almost lost Casey a few weeks ago... she accidently ate rodent poison, and I had no idea until she scraped her ear on barbed wire, and wouldn't clot. She had internal bleeding. Three days at the vet and a blood transfusion later, she's getting back to normal. I found out just how dependent I am on this little dog while she was down. Kinda like losing your right hand for three days. I'll never have another one like her!
Casey2.jpg


"Come on ladies, you're paired up and need to head to shelter."
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Heading to shelter.
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I hope you don't get the winter storm weather they keep talking about. I know exactly how you feel when your best dog is laid up,,,I sure missed mine the few days she had off after getting spade...I love the photo with all 3 on the ATV...both of our ride too...Thanks
 
Looks like you had a great day with all your buddies.

Like Jassy said, it's real tough to be without good help. My dogs seem to be the most reliable help I can find around here. Glad to hear your dog made it out alright.
 
We lost our good dog to cancer last fall. Boy! I miss her. Enjoy them, and hopefully she can help teach a youngster before you lose her. Takes a lot of time to get a good one.
 
Shortgrass said:
We lost our good dog to cancer last fall. Boy! I miss her. Enjoy them, and hopefully she can help teach a youngster before you lose her. Takes a lot of time to get a good one.
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I'm sorry to hear about your loss :( . Casey and my personality fit together, and that's why we get along so well. I have a younger female who is also useful, but we've never clicked... I've always joked that I may have picked her out of the litter, but she would've NEVER picked me :lol: !

Actually the other female is helpful on older pairs. She just has too much action for the newborns, and their mothers flip out when I try to use her on them. Casey seems to know just how much pressure to apply, and can easily take it off if needed. The other female just plows in there and hopes for the best! Usually turns into a bawling wreck :D . The downside is that Casey really doesn't have much power if the truth is to be told, we just know how to get by and make it look good half the time :wink: .

I have learned I better spend more time on the other female though since Casey won't last forever! I really can't use the two of them together effectively since Casey is very sensitive and the other one isn't... good way to wreck a soft dog.

It's funny how handicapped I am without a dog... and this is coming from someone who never wanted to use one :oops: .
 
Although I am a large animal veterinarian, I will also see the occasional dog that has been accidentally poisoned by rodenticide. I have never seen one that was presented because of a failure to clot a wound after exposure. Usually they are down and out, bleeding internally and near death if they don't get transfused in time. Kudos to you on noticing the failure to clot and saving her life by getting her veterinary care. A lot of us may have missed that in the chaos of everyday life. Again, good for you...take pride in the care you have given her.
 
DCM said:
Although I am a large animal veterinarian, I will also see the occasional dog that has been accidentally poisoned by rodenticide. I have never seen one that was presented because of a failure to clot a wound after exposure. Usually they are down and out, bleeding internally and near death if they don't get transfused in time. Kudos to you on noticing the failure to clot and saving her life by getting her veterinary care. A lot of us may have missed that in the chaos of everyday life. Again, good for you...take pride in the care you have given her.
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Interesting... let me run this by you then. I ASSUMED she had eaten poison. What happened was, she went to get the heavies in for the night, and when she got to the barn, she had a bleeding ear. I ASSUMED she had cut it on wire, but didn't actually see since I wasn't with her. That night it seemed like it was starting to clot okay, but was still bleeding some. Since it was an ear, I wasn't too concerned. The next morning I woke up to let her out and it looked like I'd slaughtered a pig in that room! I was dumbfounded since it was a small cut, and it had seemed to have started to clot some the night before.

I put a compress on her, in hopes it would clot... it didn't and that was when I took her to the vet. She rebandaged her and sent us home. That afternoon she started bleeding through her nose, and I knew we were in serious trouble. That's when we headed back in, her platelet count was 9, and she was transfused. Also, we found bruising on her chest, and her chest/abdomen was starting to fill with fluid. Two days later she stabilized and her platelet count jumped to 30.

If she had another clotting disorder... hemangiosarcoma or something else, the vet didn't think she would've gotten better. Today she acts completely normal, and her chest swelling has completely disapeared??? I haven't taken her back in to check her platelet levels yet.
 
A curious case indeed. Unfortunately we have exhausted my knowledge of canine clotting disorders. :-) Keep working with your veterinarian, sounds like she/he is on top of it. There are other issues related to platelet dysfunction (tick borne diseases, immune mediated disorders...). Or...many times just like in cattle and horses, the simplest explanation (rodenticide) is the correct one.
 
DCM said:
A curious case indeed. Unfortunately we have exhausted my knowledge of canine clotting disorders. :-) Keep working with your veterinarian, sounds like she/he is on top of it. There are other issues related to platelet dysfunction (tick borne diseases, immune mediated disorders...). Or...many times just like in cattle and horses, the simplest explanation (rodenticide) is the correct one.
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Thanks for your reply :-) . Deep down I kinda think it is something bigger... but hey, she's lived three weeks longer than I thought she would, and so we're on "bonus time!"
 
My co-workers and I headed out this morning to fix fence.
Dogs.jpg




I just had to show ya my working crew...different help,,,but same idea....

C85Jazzy--Jade_edited-1.jpg

Jazzy & Jade
 
All these shiny 4-wheelers, you guys are going to embarass mine :cry: .
If you are really determined you can convince a fourth dog to ride. :D
The trick is working one and keeping the rest mounted :? occasionally I succeed. :D
 
I just had to show ya my working crew...different help,,,but same idea....

C85Jazzy--Jade_edited-1.jpg

Jazzy & Jade[/quote]

Thanks for sharing! I really like the looks of your dogs... a lot of black, definately my preference :-) .

By the way gcreekrch, the wheeler in my photo has over 22,000 miles on it (22,400+ I think???). It definately isn't shiny and new :D . I know what you mean about working dogs with the wheeler... do you find the dog speeds up as you accelerate? I have much better luck on foot, using a pickup, tractor, or horse since my dogs feed off the wheeler noise.

My older male dog usually is only along for the ride anymore, and I try to only work one dog at a time, and so I don't have an issue keeping the non-workers on the wheeler... (the term "non-workers" also applies to me, that's why I have dogs :D )

I hope nobody has gotten the impression that I am a good dog handler, I admittedly am NOT, but I do have great appreciation for what my dogs can help me do, despite my "handling handicaps" :) . I would be lost without them :-) .
 
Our dogs much like yours and Jassy's ride on the four wheeler also. The older ones don't prefer it so much but I guess it's better then walking. My dad's weiner dog sits up with his front paws on between the handles and his ears flapping in the wind. :)
 
By the way gcreekrch, the wheeler in my photo has over 22,000 miles on it (22,400+ I think???). It definately isn't shiny and new :D . I know what you mean about working dogs with the wheeler... do you find the dog speeds up as you accelerate? I have much better luck on foot, using a pickup, tractor, or horse since my dogs feed off the wheeler noise.

My older male dog usually is only along for the ride anymore, and I try to only work one dog at a time, and so I don't have an issue keeping the non-workers on the wheeler... (the term "non-workers" also applies to me, that's why I have dogs :D )

I hope nobody has gotten the impression that I am a good dog handler, I admittedly am NOT, but I do have great appreciation for what my dogs can help me do, despite my "handling handicaps" :) . I would be lost without them :-) .[/quote]

Our bike doesn't have an odometer. We've had it for 3 years and it has seen a lot of hard miles (refer to the pic in the photo album)
Dogs will have a tendancy to speed up with acceleration noise, you just have to work with them to stay where they are/at the same speed while you're repositioning yourself. Our dogs work pretty well by correction, if they are going good leave them alone. If they are going wrong, growl at them. Sometimes having 1 good dog and 3 pups can get a little chaotic but most of our cattle are dog broke enough that the sight of a dog will bunch them up and stop them until they know where they are supposed to go.
Our country is 40% natural opens and 60% thick timber or cutblocks and relatively flat terrain , when things go wrong (and they do occasionally :D ) the bike follows the cows :shock: until we catch them up. We've been pretty fortunate to have had some good dogs over the years, wouldn't know what to do without them. Besides that their wages are cheap and we don't have to pay many benefits. :wink:
 

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