Roadside Encounters: Charlie
Name: Charlie Breed: Saint Bernard Age: 4 Encountered: At a rest area in western Montana, just a couple of miles before the Idaho state line. Backstory: Charlie, a female with a sweet disposition, was...
View ArticleIt’s a scarf! It’ a memento! It’s Bella!
It’s not something the typical dog owners does, but with enough sheddings and some hard work you can make a shawl out of your shiba inu, a cowl out of your collie, a scarf out of your Schipperke, or...
View ArticleBlind Patti: One of our calendar girls passes on
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...
View ArticleBuddy, lost on the road, turns up near Butte
An Arizona man rang in 2012 with the happy news that the dog he lost a month ago while traveling through Montana has been found. And, given it’s “National Pet Travel Safety Day” — yes, really — what...
View ArticleCorgi thought killed in avalanche returns
A Welsh Corgi who was assumed to have died in an avalanche that killed one of his owners in Montana Saturday turned up Wednesday at the door of the motel room the family had occupied. The dog, named...
View ArticleMontana man charged with getting dog drunk on vodka
A Helena, Montana, man has been charged with animal cruelty after his dog was found to have a blood alcohol level four times the legal limit for humans driving motor vehicles. Police responded to a...
View ArticleDog adopted by reservation students is shot
The heartwarming story of an injured stray dog taken in by students at a Catholic school on the Crow Reservation in Montana came to an abrupt end when someone drove onto school grounds and fired six...
View ArticleWalking for Red
When Red’s hind legs went bad, Mike Mallory started using his. Mallory — who suffered a traumatic brain injury after a car crash in 2001 and lives mostly on disability benefits he receives in Billings,...
View ArticleMontana candidate once shot neighbor’s dog
We’re not sure what effect revelations that a political candidate was once cruel to animals has on his campaign for office, but Roger Webb, a Republican running for the Montana Senate, may find out....
View ArticleWeed search: Montana dogs hit the woad
The west’s version of kudzu — a noxious weed known as Dyer’s woad — is being sniffed out by specially trained dogs as part of a program in Montana aimed at eradicating the fast-spreading, yellow...
View ArticleTilting at windmills in Montana
Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out what these long tubes I kept passing on Interstate 94 in Montana were. Airplane wings? Some new form of irrigation equipment? Space shuttle components? Pieces of...
View ArticleSurviving Butte: The story of The Auditor
Once upon a time in Butte, in a huge and barren expanse of waste that’s part of the nation’s largest Superfund site, there lived a dog. Nobody knows how he got there, why he stayed, or how he managed...
View ArticleThe ghost signs of Butte
Here’s my theory: The more ghost signs a town has, the more ghosts it probably has, too. Butte, Montana, it should come as no surprise, has plenty. Of both. Here are some of the ones that, during just...
View ArticleMontana: The love affair continues
John Steinbeck and I — in addition to traveling with our dogs, being about the same age when we set forth on our journeys, having the same first names, and a lot of the same letters in our last ones —...
View ArticleThe pawlitics of bedtime
On my first night in Missoula, I fell asleep with one dog and woke up with a different one. On the next night, I fell asleep with two dogs and woke up with one. On the third night, I fell asleep with...
View ArticleExpressing yourself, doggie style
As was the case with our kudzu dogs, this one requires just a squirt of imagination. Ace and I were walking the streets of downtown Missoula when we saw a chocolate Labrador stopping to pee — well, not...
View ArticlePortraits of Ace, in yellow
Before leaving Montana, I had to capture Ace amid all the yellow leaves that, on the trees and on the ground, were giving Missoula one last blast of vibrant color before winter sets in. I’ve always...
View ArticleRolling Dog Ranch finds greener pastures
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...
View ArticleHighway Haiku: “Bad Route Road”
“Bad Route Road” Exit and turn left For the Rotten Food Diner And No-Sleep Motel?
View ArticleWhy you won’t be seeing the Kardashians on dog sleds this season
When a front woman for the Kardashians emailed the owner of a dog sled adventure company in Montana, asking him to arrange a half-day trip for Khloe, Kim and eight other cast members — all while being...
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