You'd Better Sit Down

The days since Saturday have been up and down. Nothing done outside the norm really and with hot weather arriving finally there has been a lot of time spent inside during the day, except for early morning and last afternoon/early evening. For some reason, the other night I typed "Bloodhound Rescue In Indiana" into DuckDuckGo search engine and found one site in particular that gave me the results I was looking for ... until I read each ad for them. Every one up for adoption in four different states had "resource aggression". I had to look that up since I had no idea what they were taking about.

Off topic --- When Henry got away from me three times when we first moved here, two of those times I did not see him anywhere. I had to go through neighbors yards across the street calling his name. Then a friend suggested this might work, so I did a little online reading about them ... the Apple AirTag ... made for people like me that seem to misplace things. Why wouldn't it work for a basset hound that has wandered off? So it arrived in the mail this week, has been activated but not mounted to his collar yet.

Back to rescuing a bloodhound. Did I want to go through working through issues again? Why did I want another bloodhound so soon after losing Stella? What happened to the plan of two pups replacing the older hounds when they were gone? Lots of questions being processed as I looked and even texted and talked to an owner looking to rehome their 3 year old Black and Tan bloodhound. Once I heard that he bit someone on different occasions, the only one I was interested in adopting was off the table, not an option.

Another problem in rescuing and I ran into this when I lived at the small house for 21 years. Those organizations don't want to adopt to someone that doesn't have a fenced in yard, no matter how much experience you have. The window of opportunity to rescue an adult bloodhound was getting smaller.

The only option then was to look for bloodhound puppies. I did not have any luck with that in April 2020 when I ended up buying Walter, my first engish bulldog. Bloodhounds were not available as the ones I found were months away from litters being born, then in 2020. Late Wednesday night I found this website where the breeders were in Southern Indiana and by the history and the information on their website, they seemed to be into the breed more than just making money. They knew bloodhounds. 

You can click here to read about them and their bloodhounds. His hounds are scattered all over the USA doing SAR and are on K9 teams. From that site I clicked their Facebook page and found more information. By the time I went to bed Wednesday night I thought I might buy their Red one, since all of my past bloodhounds were red. 

Talking to him on the phone early Thursday morning I wasn't sure I was even going to buy one and if I did I did not know which one I would buy. I decided the only way to find out was to make the hour and half drive to his house to check out the last four puppies available. He let me know he had a family coming from Cincinnati that might take one that I want but I told him I would have to take that chance because I needed to see how they reacted so I could choose the right one for me.

Not only as I prepared to leave but for the whole drive over I kept asking myself why? Why do I need a third dog when two are much easier to care for? Why in the world do I want to spend another year or so training a 8 week old puppy to be a great one year old? Walter and Henry were getting along great, why do anything to disrupt their daily lives? I had only one answer for all those questions ... 

I just love bloodhounds. 

There is not another breed like them. I am not saying they are better than your breed of dog, just they are so unique. I couldn't see spending the rest of my days without a bloodhound driving me crazy.

I had to go see the last four in the litter. 

I wanted the red one in the middle photo. Their mom and dad were huge bloodhounds from the photos they sent me. When Lilly (mom) walked out on the porch to meet me she was a little bigger than Stella. I also wanted to make the trip to see how they would react to me. That was the only way I was going to tell if I wanted to buy any of them.

The breeder, a professional trainer for tracking and obedience, told me he starts training his puppies at 4-6 weeks. As I walked up to the porch he was sitting there with one in his lap. Unlike Henry that goes crazy when someone arrives, this pup just sat there looking at me without a care in the world. No signs of excitement. I liked that.

As the breeder stepped inside his house to bring out the other two puppies, me and this pup got a chance to meet each other. I knew then he would be my next bloodhound. He slowly walked over when I said "come" and started licking my face. That might have been the best thing that had happened since losing Stella. He felt strong and I could tell he is going to be a big boy when he is older. Could I handle that as I get older?

I would have bought this one online the night before but only because it was red. He did not want to come outside and immediately ran back inside after he was put on the porch. IF he had sat and looked at me or walked over to me I would have thought different but he was no longer an option in my mind, for what I was looking for. Since someone had bought a pup and had left right before I arrived, I had only one more to choose from. He was just as quiet and laidback and Black and Tan. He had so many folds on his forehead you could barely see his eyes. Still ... I kept going back to the first one I saw and held.

While talking for almost an hour about the pups, about how to train them and stories of his other bloodhounds, I kept going over in my mind why was this all happening so soon after losing Stella? Was I picking a puppy for all the wrong reasons? No matter what .. she was not coming back. I wanted to make sure I had the right reason for taking this puppy and being responsible for him as he grew up. I finally told the breeder that I would take "that one" and we proceeded with he paperwork, the new blanket had the moms' scent on it, a small bag of food he was eating ... loaded him into the FJ and headed home.

Unlike Henry, he did not stand looking out the window and crying as we drove off. Unlike Stella he did not try to take over my seat as I was driving or tried climbing over the console.  He did not whine the whole trip nor did he have any accidents in the car. They included a large pee pad to cover my seat just in case. He slept the whole trip until had had about 2 miles to get home. I sat him in the grass by the FJ and headed to the backyard. 

He followed me every step of the way and just as I was told, he would pee and poop in the yard. They had already house trained him. They had worked with him coming to them when called. I let him be by himself in the backyard to explore without Henry and Walter because I knew they were going to swarm him when they saw him. He spent about 30 minutes outside before I went into the house and brought them out. LOL ... it would have been a great video when the three met.

Even with long legs and big feet you can see how small he is but with some bloodhound determination he crawled up onto the patio deck and walked to meet them. 

Combined with 93° and a new puppy in 'his' yard, Walter wore himself out with excitement. Of course the neighbors saw him and had to be introduced. They have a small older dog so they don't mine when Walter runs to their edge of their yard everyday, pees on their small tree and then sprints to the patio door so he isn't caught. They loved the new puppy.

By early evening all three were wore out and were getting ready to watch baseball on tv. 

We were outside by 6am, after they were fed. Or I should say the pup was fed. Neither Walter nor Henry ate their breakfast this morning. Immediately Henry and Watson started playing. No need to keep Henry tethered since we were outside so early. I let him off the long cord so he could play freely. They played non-stop for about 30 minutes.

Walter was even getting some early morning sprints in with the cool temps.

Id like to know what Walter is thinking about here.

He decided he wanted to join in on the fun.

Yes, Henry did a complete full roll over while playing.

By 7:07am they were out for the count, that is until Henry saw me standing over him with the camera.

Typical bloodhound. He had his nose to the floor and then circled this spot to lay down. He must have smelled Stella's scent as that was the last place she was laying when I put the dog leash on her. I thought at the time I was going to have to pick her up someway but by the time I got back with a portable stretcher, she was standing in the hallway ready to go to the car.

So was it a good move? Honestly I don't really know right now. I need more time to sort things out. I will let things play out and get back to normal. Watson did great his first night here. I sat Walter's small crate up in the bedroom for his new "cave". He did not cry, whine or howl last night and slept through the night. When I turned the lights on and said "lets go" all three ran for the patio door to go outside and relieve themselves. He didn't hesitate and that seems to be his normal routine. 

I will do the small training techniques that the breeder taught me yesterday on a daily basis three or four times per day. So far he is way ahead on the training schedule. He walked into his crate on his own this afternoon to take a nap. Of course having the older dog and hound always helps in training a puppy as they will follow them and do what they do. 

Never a dull moment here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana. I know. I know.

Looking back through my notes when I was thinking of buying or rescuing a bloodhound, prior to blogging days ... I had a new bloodhound in 2008, less than a month after Bertha died.