Some Past Hounds

With it raining a couple of times this afternoon between the times the sun came out, the hounds and I didn't do enough to blog about anything. Stella slept, Heidi slept and Sadie paced the house and looked out the door at the rain. 

So instead of leaving the blog blank tonight I thought I'd write something short about some of my hounds I have had in the past. I have not scanned any of my photos that I had planned on a few months ago, but I did find these on my computer. I did lose a lot of photos of them in 2008 when I had one of those moments you wish you could forget ... I reformatted my hard drive thinking I had done a complete backup the week before.

Anyway here are a few of my hounds I had in the past.

Maggie

I bought Maggie as a 8 week old puppy from a type of breeder that is despised by most and gives legitimate breeders a bad name. She was one of many basset hound puppies ... a true puppy mill ... but I didn't know any better as a buyer and besides ... she was a fantastic basset hound.

She was another great hound that I had and hated losing. She had just turned 7 years old when I noticed some swollen lymph nodes that you can see on her neck. This was one of the last photos I took before I had to put her down. She also loved roaming the field in back, never ran away. Heidi's personality reminds me a lot of her.

Bertha

I bought Bertha as a 12 week old bloodhound puppy. Sadie's personality is so close to Bertha's that it scares me sometimes. She did the daily walk, roamed the field for hours on end without ever running off on me. She was 5 years old when I brought Winston home as a 8 week old basset hound puppy ... from that first 5 minutes they were inseparable until Berta died in 2008.

She was pretty large, too overweight by the time she was 4 years old but with some portion control on her food and exercising she dropped over 30 pounds. I don't ever remember her destroying much of anything like Sadie did as a puppy. Bertha loved riding in my Miata with the top down. In fact having the top down was the only way she could fit sitting in the seat.

The link in my upper left sidebar that shows Basset Hound Rescue ... it's GABR in Illinois. Max was my first adoption from them. I drove my Miata 4 hours north to pick him up, not realizing that basset hounds could be much bigger than I had been used to. Max was HUGE ...

He came waddling out into the living room in the home I had driven to and I couldn't believe it. I honestly didn't know if he was going to fit in the passenger seat of the Miata. He did though. His head was laying over the console of the driver side and my 6-speed gearshift was somewhere around his neck ... inside all that excess skin.

He was 81 pounds at the time I got him. The owner said "he only eats dry food if you put cottage cheese on it" ... I thought to myself "no way". I changed him from Pedigree and cottage cheese to the premium food at the time in 1999. One the daily walk, the same path we take now, he didn't make it out of the backyard before he had to sit down and rest (30').

Max

Over the years of walking and giving him better food, his weight dropped to 60 pounds. Two years after I picked him up he went 100% blind with retina degeneration. It didn't matter to him though and friends didn't know when they saw him unless I told them. I kept his chair in the same spot and his food bowl ... he carried on like that for his next 5 years until he passed at the age of 12. Here is a photo of him walking in the field totally blind.

This next bloodhound you already know ... it's Stella this evening getting in a long yoga stretch after sleeping most of the afternoon. She didn't even wake up to change sleeping spots.

Well it took all day but at 7:09pm, the sunshine is out, not a dark cloud in the sky and the birds are all talking at the same time. The ground is too wet to do the late evening walk ... but I have a couple of bloodhounds wanting to go outside.

A beautiful Friday night here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.