Passing the Hat for Beebe the Brave
I knew something was wrong when I opened the half-door to enter the dining room Tuesday morning and Beebe wasn’t there to greet me. Instead, she lay sprawled across the linoleum floor un-moving. A sense of dread settled in the pit of my stomach.…
Welcome to the latest Updates From the Farm! If you are new here, I invite you to check out my About page to learn what this is, who I am and why I am doing this. Or just dive right in! At “Runamuk Acres” you’ll find the recantings of one lady-farmer and tree-hugging activist from the western mountains of Maine. #foodieswanted
In This Post:
Beebe’s Iron Stomach
The Waiting
Beebe at the Vet
Leaving Beebe
Passing the Hat
This Dog is Special
The Berium Treatment
At School
On the Farm
Beebe’s Iron Stomach
It’s only due to the deep cold of January in Maine that Beebe (pronounced “bee-bee”) the Brave is in the house at all.
NOTE: To read the story of how Beebe came to Runamuk, check out this post from the blog-archives.
Because this massive dog o’ mine will jump even the tallest fence, she typically has to be tethered when no one is about to keep an eye on her. With such limited mobility, I worried she couldn’t move around enough to maintain body-temperature during the deep cold of the overnights, so we’ve been bringing the livestock dog into the house at night—just through the worst of winter.
Thus far in her four and a half years, Beebe has been very robust. An old-world breed, I’ve been impressed with the Central Asian Shepherd. They are not so domesticated as some breeds have become, and Beebe seemed to have an iron-stomach. Able to process foods that made Murphy (a black lab) look like a squeamish city-pup. So it was a surprise when I woke on Sunday to find Beebe had been sick in the night.
Normally a very clean-living dog, refusing to so much as pee in the vicinity of her doghouse, Beebe had vomited, had diarrhea and peed all over the dining room and the bathroom of the farmhouse while I slept.
By the time I found her she seemed to be feeling better. She even ate her meals both Sunday and Monday.
Tuesday morning when I came down, however, I found her lethargic and unwilling to get up or move about. She would not go outside and refuses to eat. My fear is that she took a bone the wrong way inside her or ate something she shouldn’t have.
A dog like this who roams field and forest will find all manner of things during their adventures. I can’t even begin to count the number of times Beebe has come strutting out of the woods proudly brandishing a bone between her jaws.
Hell! Just a few weeks ago during a walk across the frozen field, I spied the entire foreleg of a deer—hoof, fur and all—lying on the field!
And Beebe loves a good meaty bone…
It’s instinctual. But also dangerous. Slivers of bone can tear organs and intestines. That’s why veterinarians are recommending against giving bones to our dogs.
But Beebe is who she is, and I can’t prevent her from finding random deer-legs on the field because this farmish life is the life we live.
So here we are.
The Waiting
Initially, the earliest our local vet could see us was Saturday morning—an eternity away when a loved one is suffering so.
Though I know full-well veterinarians in our region are typically booked solid, refusing to see animals who are not a current a patient, I called a practice several towns over just to try. Met with the expected response, I asked about emergency care clinics but the staff-member didn’t seem overly confident those facilities would be able to triage something so serious. Also, the closest ER Vet is a hour and a half away in Lewiston and only open overnights.
Considering how stressful it is for Beebe to go to the vet, I decided to leave that option on the table. If she took a turn for the worse, I’d take her. But if we could wait for our usual veterinarian, I thought that best for Beebe.
Mercifully, Carrabasset Veterinary Services (CVS) called me Wednesday morning while I was at school to see if Beebe was still feeling poorly. They’d had a spot open up that afternoon which I seized with huge relief.
Beebe at the Vet
Beebe walked into the office on unsteady legs that trembled and shook. Coaxing her on with gentle praise, I eased her into the waiting room. She was too sore and miserable even to care about the strange dog there.
The hardest part of taking Beebe to the vet is that she doesn’t trust strangers, especially men. She will growl and bite at the staff when they need to examine her. At 109 pounds, she’s a big girl, and for everyone’s safety Beebe has to be muzzled to be handled by anyone but me.
She’s learned to tolerate it more with every visit. So we went through the process of muzzling poor Beebe to get the blood and stool samples we needed.
Those results revealed nothing out of the ordinary, leading us on to x-rays.
Here we could see that her intestines are all bunched up and in disarray. The reason for such chaos wasn’t obvious, however. Was it a blockage? A foreign body? We couldn’t tell.
This brought us to the decision to administer a barium treatment first thing in the morning.
Barium is a chalky substance ingested orally, which illuminates the digestive tract on an x-ray. We hope it would shine a light on the issue and provide some answers for resolution.
Leaving Beebe
After watching my girl suffer these last few days, leaving Beebe at the clinic overnight damn near broke my heart.
This dog and I have not spent a night apart in the four years since she came to Runamuk, and, though she typically spends most nights outside, there is a connection which binds us even across the landscape.
My heart aches to know this sweet girl is stressed and scared, not feeling well and far away from the love of her farmer and family.
I stayed with her in her “room” for a while before I departed. A small cell in an out of the way room at the back of the facility. The had an IV in her foreleg and all of the gadgets and medical machinery made her uneasy.
Removing my hoodie I wadded it up to make a pillow, then lay there with her for a while.
I think—I hope—she saw that I trusted these people to help her.
Passing the Hat
If I’d known two weeks ago that I’d be in this situation with Beebe, I’d have saved the funds raised on Murphy’s behalf and rescheduled Murph’s appointment. For he was healthy as a horse, and now here I am likely facing surgery to save Beebe.
There was no way to know, of course.
Now here I am, once again with negative funds available after paying for heating fuel, the car payment and the mortgage—though I did manage to register the car (only a month overdue on 30-day plates lol).
The funds donated for Murphy are long gone, spent of course on Murphy’s appointment, but also much needed heating fuel for this big old house. Currently I have enough fuel to last me about 25 days. Maybe less with these bitter cold temperatures we’ve been experiencing for the past week or so.
I haven’t dared ask about the expense of all of this—the hospital stay, all of the x-rays, the IV and the berium fluid… Whatever the expense I will deal with it, but if you are able and inclined, donations can be made by clicking the image below.
Donations can be made through paypal’s friends & family option to avoid processing fees, allowing me to keep the entirety of your donation.
So far, we've received $100 $250 for Beebe!🥳 Thank you so much!
This Dog is Special
I’m sure everyone says their dog is special, but—in my minds’ eye—Beebe the Brave embodies everything that Runamuk is. She is the work-partner I never found in life or love.
And, gawd! Is she smart!
Even the staff at the clinic could see her assessing them and the situation while we all worked together to make this beautiful, hardworking animal feel better. I just can’t bear to lose her.
If you can’t afford to help, please don’t worry. I’ll just write a check and let the chips fall where they may. Fuck it. What else are you supposed to do in these situations?
No really—I want to know.
The Berium Treatment
Because ain’t no one else putting their hands in or even near this dog’s mouth but me, I left school immediately after serving breakfast yesterday to assist in administering the berium treatment.
X-rays every 2-hours have so far been inconclusive.
There “may” be a small mass holding things up. It may yet pass through on its own, or there’s a chance the berium may lubricate it enough for it to pass through without surgery.
Dr. Shawn preferred to keep Beebe another night for continued observation, and I went for a visit so she’d know she is not lost and forgotten.
At School
The outpouring of support for Beebe has been overwhelming and I am so grateful for the many well-wishes, prayers and love sent by friends, family and followers alike. Even a couple of the kiddos coming through my breakfast and lunch-lines at school have asked after Beebe, which just about puts me to tears every time.
This was our first week back to school after a long vacation and what a hum-dinger it’s been for me!
Monday began peacefully enough, I even received a heart-melting “I missed you!” from one of the kiddos coming through the breakfast line. But then Tuesday threw it all up in arms with the discovery of Beebe’s illness. I haven’t slept well all week, worrying over Beebe, back and forth to the veterinarian’s office, and then yesterday morning our custodian at school texted at quarter-to-six in the morning to inform me that our commodities had arrived.
Of course it would come the same day I had to be available to help vet-staff with my ginormous dog, lol.
This is a monthly shipment from the USDA that every public school across the country receives. Generally, Uncle Sam sends meat and produce. The meats are highly processed and tend to make me cringe, but the fruits and veggies are a welcome addition to what I can offer the students I’m serving.
Among other things, this delivery contained four cases of these mashed and frozen strawberries packaged in individual cups—which, of course, I taste-tested, and those are actually very good (all I have to do is overlook the heinous single-use/single-serve packaging, lol). I put some on the salad bar for lunch and we fairly had a run on them, the kids loved them so much.
On the Farm
Meanwhile, back on the farm, the bitter cold and winds these last couple weeks has been downright brutal.
Hauling water and hay twice a day for livestock in such conditions takes a surprising amount of energy and impacts our entire day. I’d hoped to do some snowshoeing during our holiday break, but couldn’t bring myself to venture out onto the windswept field. I did, however, manage to make a start on cleaning and organizing the Propagation Room in preparation for 2025 seed-starting come February.
The four farm-cats have sequestered themselves to the house, and poor old Murph doesn’t stay long outside these days.Even the sheep are much preferring the sanctity of their shed over lazing about outside.
I think we’re all looking forward to a January thaw, but right now I’m mostly looking forward to being able to bring Beebe back home.
Send good juju for her healthy recovery.
Sending love and good juju to you and yours.
Your friendly neighborhood farmer,
Sam
Thank you for following along with the story of this lady-farmer! It is truly a privilege to live this life serving my family and community, and protecting wildlife through agricultural conservation. Check back soon for more updates from the farm, and be sure to follow @RunamukAcres on Instagram or Facebook!
We're hauling water from the kitchen sink in 5 gallon pails, too. BraeTek doesn't mind hauling the water, but prefers not to do the hay if he can help it lol. Which works well for us, as I prefer to haul hay over water. So we break up the chores that way quite often, making the whole thing a bit less overwhelming.
Thanks for the well-wishes! Beebe came home this evening!!🥳
i would like to donate but have never used paypal for this. what is email address to send it to?