Travis came to Rolling Dog Ranch from Spokane, where he had been left tied to a veterinary clinic door.

He had a rare muscular disease that -- though it's normally treatable -- went untreated for so long that his jaw fused shut, leaving him, in the view of animal control, unadoptable.

Surgeons affilliated with the ranch determined he had masticatory myositis, and that surgery wasn't an option. Drugs didn't help much either. A tube was inserted into his stomach and, for months after he arrived at the ranch, Steve and Alayne fed him that way. To keep Travis from pulling his stomach tube out, they kept him covered in a dog sweater.

One day though, they noticed he was licking an empty dog bowl, and that he was able to stick his tongue out through a small opening between his teeth on one side of his mouth.

They began feeding him with a bowl, running the food through a blender first, and eventually Travis ripped the unused tube out of his stomach. He continues to eat out of a bowl, but, since he can't lick it clean, the other dogs wait for him to finish and then scarf up what he has left behind.

The hole in his stomach where the tube was is healing now, and Travis, thanks to taking in more food, has become far more energetic than he was when he arrived.

He loves wrestling with the other dogs, and while he can't use his mouth to playfully bite, he does use his front teeth like a saw, Smith said. He can't bark, but he does manage -- by puffing his cheeks and pushing air through the tiny opening in his mouth -- a muffled woof.

(Tomorrow: Visiting the cathouse)