It was expected. It was in the forecast. It is happening as I write this. Newspaper said 2"-3" of rain by Thursday afternoon when it stops around 3pm (prediction) but after the first storm blew around us on Wednesday, I had my doubts about the storm that started last night around midnight. Consequently the hounds and the dog are not "happy campers". Henry has been the only one to sneak out along the edge of the house, around the corner into the stone area to pee first thing this morning.
With a late start to the day, they still got their walks in, a late lunch turned into a short siesta with the windows open. Not much was done different than any other day. A couple of hound walks, time on the patio under the sun, some lunch and some Reds baseball.
They may have been out a few times this morning to explore the yard like they always do. With temps in the 40's that is warm enough to where they don't want to come inside ... except Walter. While Henry and Watson walked the yard with noses to the ground, they were really interested in something else. It is something they have become addicted to. They are waiting for me to clean the yard so right after I am finished, they know they get to go on their morning walks.
Thanks to Barney suggesting the other day I do some research on backlit photos, that led me to go over all the settings on my Nikon D3500 and I changed a few things from what I found. Consequently my photos today look just like they did when the camera was new. I had not been happy with the quality of the photos for a long time. Of course these were taken mid day on a bright sunny day, so lighting made a difference too. Still I can tell a big difference in quality.
It was hard to believe under skies like this, that Walter would make an appearance outside. It took him a while as these photos are in order they were taken. 65°, warm and windy when I opened the door to let hounds outside for the first time. It was darker than this at the time, a little before 6:00am.
Winters down here in "the tropics" are a little different than cities and towns in other parts of the state. We are actually further south than Louisville and much further south than St Louis. So the big storm predicted for Wednesday will blow by north of us and we will have high's in the 70's tomorrow and Thursday. The hounds love it and so does the dog. They spent most of their day outside on Monday. Henry and Watson had great walks with Samson Watson having quite the test to show me how good he is.
The Sunday afternoon was a nice 58° and all of us were in a deep siesta, when I woke to hear the doorbell ring and two hounds and a dog were sprinting down the hallway to the front living room windows to see who was visiting. That included a lot of barking as usual. As I leaned over to look through the lower glass of the door, it was a girl holding a menu for Girl Scout Cookies.
Hard to believe it was a week ago tonight where a lot of things changed around here. It's going to take a pretty long time to forget it. The two previous owners of Samson and I have analyzed, talked and asked many questions. All of us have second guessed what we did, then why we did it. Thanks to Lynn and another reader that commented, all three of us had a better understanding on what happened with Samson. In hindsight, there were some red flags after we read about "rage syndrome". There is a lot of moving pieces to that puzzle, all with a sad ending.
That's the question Walter is asking, "is it spring yet'. All signs are there. 69° just a couple of days ago before he had an inch of rain, flooding the backyard again. Temps are to be warm again the next few days. Plus he spent some time this past week sleeping in the hot sun on the patio deck. He is just curious. He did go outside first thing Thursday morning after hit has rained all night. He even slide outside between rains later in the day. He was feeling pretty good after he had a fresh bowl of water without any hound drool floating around in it. He hates that and refuse to drink until he gets a clean bowl.
Combined with great weather, warm enough to spend time outside, and my hand healing with no problems so far ... things are good. Sad but good. I realized Sunday morning I must have been in shock Saturday night and possibly the reason that the officer said I was the calmest person of his three dog bite calls that night. Since that time I have sorted and analyzed what happened. Why did I call animal control so fast after I walked back inside from the garage? I have second guessed myself on making the call until I remember how he acted towards me and the two control officers. There was a reason they shot him with a tranquilizer.
That 1% I spoke of 10 days ago happened Saturday night. Unprovoked. It was halftime of the IU game and I had gotten up walking this direction, planning to make a right turn down the hallway to the bathroom. Just as I stepped on that wood I heard a loud ATTACK bark growl and when I turned left to see what was going on, Samson lunged at me. The worse attack mode I have ever seen a dog in. You can see the kitchen table moved to the right. That must have happened as I struggled to get out of his grip ... and trying to get away from him. I was backing up through the kitchen fighting him off hoping to get to the garage and shut the door.
The temps increased from 29° early in the morning to 47° by early afternoon. That mean a lot of backyard hound play and walks for all three of them. I tried but Walter has zero interest in going out to walk, although without a leash he will walk with me to the mailbox. He waits on the driveway while I walk across the street to get my mail. Nothing but photos after this. IU game at 5pm but I will be out on the patio enjoying this weather as long as I can.
After a night of rain, our totals were only .95" of rain in the past 24 hours. It seemed like a lot more than that based on the saturation of the backyard. Those forecasted high winds were here by the time we got up at 6:30am. About the time the hounds and the dog were at the patio door, the lights came on. The power went out about an hour earlier. It didn't take long for that bright sunrise to turn into this, dark and gray clouds. The "feels like" temps were about 5° colder than what was showing up on my phone.
With high winds and rain in the forecast I thought it might be time to reach into the bottom cabinet drawer, the dog drawer, and pull out three brand new knucklebones. When they cannot go outside they need something to occupy them. I bought three last month to store not knowing then I would need four, but it has all worked out. Oh ... those high winds and rain have not arrived as of this morning. Typical for this area. A lot of times storms blow around our location and that is always a good thing.
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Their morning play session about 7:30am at 19° ... believe it or not, Google put the photos in order. I'll post a video in tonights post.
Google is up to its old tricks again reversing the order of my photos no matter how I load them. It takes too long to load them per content so I have always loaded them all at once, and type between them. So I will think in reverse order as I write. It's been a really good day for the new bloodhound and it's only 2:15pm local time. All four of them are in a deep sleep with Walter snoring loud from his spot in the computer room. Here you can get a better idea just how tall a bloodhound is.
I deleted the post I wrote yesterday about adopting Samson because it's not going to happen. The later the night got, the more thoughts of common sense came into my head. Various reasons to adopt him a just as many not to. A few years ago when I was thinking of rescuing a basset hound or bloodhound, I can't remember which, a friend told me "Steve you cannot save all of them". That rang true last night.
The problem was with him, unlike Stella in 2015, Samson has a biting problem. Some things might be consistent in what causes him to turn aggressive but it was said he could at a "flip of a switch" for no reason. THAT would be hard for a non-profession trainer (me) to fix. It would take a lot of time and training to get him past that.
For all the time it would take would be less time I spend with Watson, Henry and Walter. Less attention for them to give attention to the new bloodhound. No matter what anyone says, you can only give 100% and it's hard to spread that out evenly.
Watson has really responded to his new training. I would hate to change his routine right now and have him compete with a new bloodhound that would be in a lot of training. Even if Samson got along with all my hounds and the dog, who's to say one of mine would not like him moving into their territory or want one of their bones. I am afraid it would turn into a hound/dog fight that I could not break up.
This morning I notified the owner and the lady that is trying to place him. I have not heard back from the owner but I have from her. She understood but it was hard to read "you were the best chance he had".
I may have been but those words ring in my head "Steve you cannot save all of them".
It was darker outside when I took these four photos. It is the first trip outside for the hounds after they woke up. Walter always stays inside until after he eats. You will notice though, the standing water was already gone at 6:30am, soaked into the ground after all the rain we had up to midnight light night. It was good to see, with sunshine and mid 50's today, at least for part of the day.
Warning ---- only one dog and no hounds photos tonight in this short, unplanned post. Two --- I know all about the rain in California and this is nothing compared to that but California rain has nothing to do with this blog post. Three --- Walter will NOT go outside no matter how long he has to wait to poop and pee. Luckily he went out after his lunch and right before the rains started around 12:30pm. It is 5:16pm local time as I write this with solid rain until a little past midnight.
I was confused yesterday when I said I did not have any new photos because I found some this morning on my iPhone. Then I am still confused today because when I uploaded the photos I took this morning (shown here) plus the "missing" photos, I saw I had used the "missing" photos here on my January 9th post. I had used my iPhone, Nikon, and Cannon in the past 8 days. Luckily when I load them into my "Import" file here on my iMac they are sorted date taken.
Blogger is also confused today. I have uploaded the photos in this post 4 different times and Blogger still puts them in reverse order than the way I loaded them. I even shut down my browser on the last two attempts but it did not work. So all these photos except the last two, were taken this morning.
It might say it's 51° this afternoon but it still feels cold while having a day of light rain off and on with an overcast damp feeling to the air. So when I checked the photo import folder for recent hound and dog photos, I did not find any new ones since my last post. I felt like blogging today so I went back into my photo library and found a few older ones.
This is Heidi in July 2011. It was one of her photos on her adoption ad at Basset Hound Rescue. I made arrangements to drive up to met the foster mom and her in a parking lot in back of shopping center in Merrillville Indiana. She was happy to sit on the extended bed in the passenger seat for our 4 hour drive home.
Stepped outside a little past 12:30pm today and it felt like a day in April. It was 42° and April is still four months away. The day was still nice and with a jacket and hat on, it was nice to sit out on the patio and enjoy the sunshine.
