Missoulian, Nov. 24, 2002
Safe haven: Disabled and disfigured animals find a loving home on couple's 160 acres
By GINNY MERRIAM of the Missoulian
At the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal
Sanctuary near Ovando, Steve Smith holds a bucket
of grain for Myrtle, a ewe who lost her ears in a
pit bull attack, while Jenny, the sheep's guard mule,
stands nearby. Smith and his wife, Alayne Marker,
provide a home for unwanted animals that often suffered
from neglect, abuse, injury and disease. |
OVANDO - At the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary, every creature comes with a story.
Most every story is of suffering and pain, neglect and disease. But every story has a happy ending on Upper Dry Gulch Road on Kleinschmidt Flat east of Ovando, where Steve Smith and Alayne Marker have established discarded-animal heaven.
Visitors to the 160 acres are likely to be greeted by the
loud barks of Widget, a beagle-dachshund mix with bowed legs
and charge-ahead curiosity about everything. She pokes her
head through the fence wire, leading with her nose, a foot-tall
Napoleon who wants everybody to know she's in charge.
Widget is blind. She came to Montana because nobody wanted
her. At an animal shelter in upstate New York, she was on
death row. An animal rescue organization there got in touch
with the Rolling Dog Ranch. The price of Widget's life was
a $153 Delta airline ticket. Steve and Alayne didn't think
twice.
If Widget could see, Alayne likes to say, she'd probably take the keys and drive the truck to Helmville for some adventure. What she has taught her benefactors has no price, they say: A disability is no reason to give up on an animal, and it shouldn't bring a death sentence. A blind dog, a deaf dog, a cat with diabetes, an elderly mule, a blind horse, a sheep with its ears chewed off can all enjoy good lives.
"They just work their way through and over and around it," Marker said in a recent interview at the ranch. "They live with it, and they have quality of life."
Widget inspired Marker and Smith to rescue other blind dogs. Kelly, an old, blind dog was found wandering near Deer Lodge in May, presumably turned out by someone. No one responded to an ad. The local shelter called Steve and Alayne, who took care of her until she died of other medical problems recently.
Dusty was a sled dog whose owner had Dusty's right eye removed when it developed glaucoma. Untreated, the other eye went blind. The musher took Dusty to a local veterinarian to have him euthanized in June.
"The vet called us and said, "I don't want to put this dog down,' " Smith said. " 'He's only 2, and he's just blind.' "
Dusty arrived fearful and cringing at the touch of people. His social skills were minimal, and he spent most of his time out at the far corner of the 5-acre fenced field for the dogs at the ranch. Just recently, he began going to the door of the dog cottage when it's time to go in, and he lines up for cookies now with the other dogs. He has made friends with Widget and plays with her. With the help of their small-animal veterinarians, Brenda and Britt Culver in Helena, Smith and Marker are trying to save Dusty's left eye by relieving the pressure on it. Even though Dusty can't see through it, they want him to keep it so he doesn't look frightening to visitors and discourage them from petting him.
Anna, the tiniest Great Pyrenees, was found by a neighbor at the bottom of a Dumpster at the county dump.
"She had this huge, matted, filthy coat," Smith said, "but she was bone-thin underneath."
Smith and Marker and the vets can only speculate about her. She may be a backyard-breeder accident, and she is probably stunted from malnutrition and having puppies too young.
"She was almost like an autistic child," Alayne said. "She didn't know how to play. She didn't wag her tail. It was like she never had a chance to be a dog."
"The dogs that have been through hell," said Smith, "those are the dogs that need the most help."
Anna is one of 15 dogs at the sanctuary. A census-taker would also count 11 cats, five cows, five horses, one mule, one donkey, three sheep and five chickens. The chickens and one of the horses are staff. The rest are rescues, most from Montana.
Lena, a blind horse who was the first resident, is a quarter
horse who was victim of a training regimen that would cause
her to go over backwards if she reared up, accomplished by
tying the reins tightly behind the saddle. Blows to her head
during the falls ruined her optic nerve fibers and blinded
her. She came to the sanctuary covered with bites from other
horses because she was at the bottom of the pecking order.
 Toby clings to Smith in the cat
cottage. The cat was considered unadoptable at a shelter
because it was mangled and blinded in one eye, probably
by a dog or coyote. |
Oscar, a miniature dachshund who's 10, came to Rolling Dog after his family gave up on him for behavioral problems; he has been a perfect gentleman at the ranch. Toby, an orange cat who lives in the cat cottage now with six other cats was considered unadoptable at a local shelter because the right side of his head was mangled, probably by a dog or coyote. He lost his right eye, his left eye is permanently dilated and his right ear is deformed. When people pick him up, he puts his front legs tightly around their necks and purrs loudly. Myrtle, a ewe who survived a pit bull attack on her flock that killed five sheep, had her ears chewed off and her neck deeply gashed but has grown portly and happy at the ranch, coming to the sound of the grain bucket. Pappy, an elderly German shepherd found skinny and in pain from a long-dislocated hip, benefited so much from a hip-joint reconstruction surgery that he can now follow Marker and Smith on their rounds of chores.
They even have a trio of pet cows that became homeless after their Wyoming owner was divorced and lost their pasture.
"Everybody gets along so great," Marker said. "A new one comes, and everybody's OK with it."
Smith and Marker came to Ovando from the unlikely venue of good corporate jobs with Boeing in the Seattle area. Marker is a lawyer and Smith a communications specialist. They met about 10 years ago at a park in Bellevue, Wash. Smith was trail running, and Marker was walking with her dog, Spats, a black Labrador retriever cross who had white feet and a white chest. Spats began following Smith, so he had to run after Alayne to return her dog.
"I kinda noticed her," he says today. "I kinda noticed she wasn't wearing a wedding ring."
They've been married eight years. From the beginning, they shared a love of Montana hiking vacations.
"Night after night for years, she would lay in bed and read land catalogs," Steve said of Alayne. "Honestly."
On a trip to the Missoula area in June 1998, they found a quarter section of rangeland for sale, almost by accident. It was flat - Kleinschmidt Flat - but the irrigation ditch supported cottonwoods, and the backdrop of the Scapegoat Wilderness and the North Fork of the Blackfoot River country was spectacular. They met the rancher who had the land listed. By September they closed on it, and in November they put up their modest house.
When they met, Marker had her dog, and Smith had six cats. Their household grew to six dogs and six cats, way over the codes for Bellevue. They were involved in animal shelter work as volunteers, and they talked about turning their Ovando property into an animal sanctuary after they retired - early, they hoped.
"It was our own pets who inspired us," Steve said. "It was seeing dogs like this that made us realize and think we could make such a difference."
But time moved too slowly in Bellevue.
"In 2000, we just said, 'Early retirement is too far away,' " Steve said. "So we gave up those good corporate jobs at Boeing and moved out here."
"There we were in Bellevue," said Alayne, "and we just felt like we were clocking time."
Steadily, they have built outbuildings that include a dog cottage for the residents, a dog receiving cottage that's also an infirmary, and a cat cottage. They named it the Rolling Dog Ranch because their dogs love to roll on their backs in the sagebrush meadows.
Though establishing nonprofit status was among the first things they did, they've used their own savings to develop the ranch.
"We came out here knowing we were going to use our own money to establish the sanctuary," Steve said. "We want people to know their (donated) money goes to the care of the animals."
They know they've taken a chance.
"Probably if we had had children, we wouldn't have done this," Alayne said. "It's a risk. We would have felt like we should stay at Boeing, put the kids through college."
The sanctuary's bills are bigger than the $4,000 in donations they've received this year. The veterinarians' bills so far this year are $6,050. Animal equipment and supplies have cost almost $5,400 and hay and grain $2,945. The farrier has cost $560, and the power bill runs $325 to $350 a month in the winter. They heat the house with wood mostly, but in the winter they depend on 13 water tank heaters to keep 960 gallons of water from freezing for the animals. The cottages are heated, as is the igloo in the barn for the barn cats and the igloo for the only dog who sleeps outside. (Walker is mentally handicapped and unable to learn basic house training.)
Though they both work at jobs full-time - Alayne passed the Montana bar exam and is establishing a traveling practice, and Steve has a marketing and communications firm with a partner in Missoula - sanctuary chores and animal care run their days.
Besides feeding, they have a significant load of doctoring to do. Many of the animals need daily pharmaceuticals. A diabetic cat named Sugar - named that before she developed the diabetes - needs insulin shots every day. One of the barn cats, who are part resident and part staff, developed asthma. Oral drugs aren't working, and Steve sees a kitty inhaler in his future.
He'll do it, say both their veterinarians.
"They're the most meticulous clients I've had," said Leslie Strope, a Seeley Lake mobile horse vet who cares for the sanctuary's large animals. "If I prescribe a drug regimen, I never have any doubts they'll follow through."
The work they do requires so much patience, said Helena veterinarian Brenda Culver, who with her veterinarian husband, Britt, cares for the small animals at their Rocky Mountain Veterinary Clinic.
"They all have such demanding diseases," she said in a phone interview from Helena. "They are running a nursing home, really. The animals set the schedule for the day. They always accept the responsibility in such a loving way."
"Britt and I think they've done this right, 100 percent,"
she said. "These are animals that require not only lots
of medical attention but lots of emotional attention. These
animals have 100 percent of what they need."
 Marker holds Widget, a blind Beagle-Dachshund mix who inspired Marker and Smith to rescue other blind dogs. They think, because of her uncanny ability to get around, Widget has been blind since birth. |
Steve and Alayne laugh at the things they've learned to do
and the situations they've been in. Steve can't keep a straight
face at the vision of Alayne chasing Widget across the field
when it's time to come in, and Widget's not ready.
There's something hilarious, Steve says, about a little blind
dog outrunning a fit 47-year-old woman.
They can't believe they've mastered the art of giving chickens
oral antibiotics.
"If you think it's bad with a cat," said Steve,
"a chicken can move its head 360 degrees."
They are continually amazed by the creative ways the animals get around their disabilities. The blind horses, for instance, each paired up with a sighted horse, donkey or mule - Lena with Lonesome George the old mule, Shasta with former dressage star Blueberry and Marie with the sighted Crazy Horse. They serve as "service equines" of a sort. Blueberry wears bells on her halter so Shasta can find her. When Blueberry wants a little time alone, she stands still. It drives Shasta crazy.
Alayne has worked out a signal with Tyler, a deaf Pointer who came to the sanctuary after a Montana couple ordered him from a puppy mill and he arrived deaf and emaciated. She would let him out the front door of the house and then play musical doors with him, front and back, because he can't hear when she calls. Now, she flips the porch light on and off.
Their neighbors have been welcoming and supportive, the
couple said. Some think they're a little odd, especially when
it comes to the rescued pet cows. Alayne tells of a rancher
neighbor who shakes his head over them and says, "It
ain't right, and it ain't natural" that those cows aren't
being bred. But he laughs.
John and Irene Weaver, whose irrigation ditch flows through
the sanctuary before the water gets to their ranch, say Steve
and Alayne are exceptional neighbors. They help clean out
the ditch in the spring, John said, because they feel responsible
for their cottonwood leaves clogging it up, what used to be
a week of work for John and Irene alone.
"Right to start with, we just kinda held our breath for them," said John Weaver, who has ranched on about a section for 50 years. "But they're doing a great job. To take care of all the misfits, that's really something."
Though Weaver says he and Irene are not experts, they've advised Alayne and Steve about cow vaccines and related topics.
Some people think they're crazy, he said. In a nice way.
"Some people do think they ought to have cattle that produce something," he said.
Veterinarian Brenda Culver could practice veterinary medicine all her life, she said, and still not be able to answer fully why work like Steve and Alayne's is necessary. There are two schools of people, she said, when it comes to the way people treat animals.
"The way people treat their animals is exemplary of who they are as people," she said. "You can see it in their jobs, in their relationships, in the rest of their lives."
Steve and Alayne are at the high end of the kindness spectrum, said veterinarian Strope. Those who neglect and abuse animals are a minority, but they're there.
"Some people's bonds with their animals are only as good as the animals' ability to do what they want them to do," she said.
There are economic factors, too, she said.
"A lot of people don't take the responsibility for the care of the animal's needs," she said.
People want the perfect animal, Steve said, the perfect puppy with no troubles.
Once an animal has a disability, it's flawed.
"People see no value in them," he said. "They don't see them as individuals with emotions and feelings and the ability to suffer.
"It's hard to explain to people the absolute joy an animal like this can bring to your life."
But the glass is half full, too, and Steve and Alayne look at that half sooner than the empty half. Every animal that's at the sanctuary is there because someone was its rescuer and advocate.
"When you're doing this kind of work," Alayne said, "you see the very worst in people and the very best."
They do the work, she said, because the need is there. That's all. They want to grow a little to accommodate more animals, and they'd like to start internships and have some relief staff - they haven't been away yet. But they won't grow so much that they can't provide individual attention for each animal. And they insist on only as many animals as can be inside at night in the harsh climate near the Scapegoat.
"It's not a shelter," Alayne said. "It's a
home. Most of these animals are unadoptable, and they'll be
here the rest of their lives."
The Rolling Dog Ranch Web site is www.rollingdogranch.org.
Its telephone number is 793-6001.
