Normal Daily Routine

This time of year not much going on. 

Watson Violently Sick Yesterday

First of all, two things, that photo was take at 6pm last night and Ava woke up this same morning on Thursday with just a slight limb. By Thursday afternoon I could not keep her from being her normal active self.

Ava Limping This Morning

Our daily routine started early, very early this morning at 4:00am. Same routine including feeding them breakfast because Cletus was howling for food. The change was, as I let the hounds and Ava back inside from the dark cold backyard she was limping. It was her left front leg, the same one she cut in July. No signs of a cut. She let me examine her paw and there was nothing stuck in the pad of the foot.

Ava Outruns Them All

Before I get into the mornings play session outside in 21° weather, I want to backup the past few days to show you how we have been beating the coldest temperature so far this winter. Although it was 2024 last January and February, like now, I still call anything from November to February as "this winter". Ava continues to grow, has developed her own routines but she loves to be outside most of her time.

Cold & A Little Snow

It started snowing lightly Saturday afternoon. I was set up for Saturday Football as were the hounds. They had spent most of Saturday morning outside running all over the yard. It was the first time Ava had seen snow. Cletus is still doing great but he has shown me that he lived on the streets for a few weeks as a stray and probably had to raid garbage cans to find food to eat. He is on Wholesome Sportmix like the others and is gaining weight. His ribs are slowly disappearing as well as that scar on his neck. 

Cold Temps Have Arrived

Cletus shows you just how much he loves Watson's love seat. I think you can tell he finds sleeping there much more comfortable than sleeping in the streets during the weeks he was wandering the streets of Salem Indiana before they caught him. August 23rd the bloodhound trainer and manager of the Greene County Shelter picked him up and took him to his house to train and live.

Early Morning Cardio

They would have started an hour earlier with their DAILY early morning cardio if I had let them. So a little before 8:30am I let them outside after I heard Cletus's big deep loud bloodhound bark, wanting to go outside. All three of them sprinted from the door to the yard and the game was on. I am going to buy some of this "Dog Turf" for my bare spots. Grass seed can be planted below it and grow through it. Should be interesting. 

A Slight Change Of Direction

I will probably end up getting back to writing what's going on, or a rant etc ... eventually. Right now I am thinking about changing the blog direction a little bit. Like a paragraph of content, then 15-25 photos. I have done that before here. Years ago I had a Wordpress blog where that is all I did. So we will see.

Cooler Temps Don't Bother Them

The past few days have shown some new developments with the hounds and dogs. Watson has finally accepted that there is another bloodhound in the house. He is now one of Cletus's best friends. I did not get a photo of it but it was official Saturday morning when Watson had his front paw on the side of Cletus's head when he was laying down, while licking and cleaning Cletus's face. They are also playing more outside one on one.

Strangest Thing Happened

This gives you a good idea what it looks like when the hounds and dogs want to come inside. They don't bark. Henry or Watson might scratch on the door window, otherwise they will sit quietly until I show up. In this case they saw me walking to the door and they came running from different directions. Is there a dog missing?

Not Much Went On Today

I cannot get over how well Cletus is settling in here. He came housebroken and I had a test for him today. I needed groceries plus a run to The Donut Bank to buy some celebration pastry to eat. I was gone for almost an hour, where I left him and all the adult hounds, and dog in the house with access to the backyard. When Ava saw me getting ready to leave, she grabbed her Nylabone and went into her crate without any command.

Ava & Cletus Start Early

This is my second or third time I have tried to post a video on the blog. Not sure if it will work or not. Ava and Cletus started playing early this morning. I heard her playing at 6:44am so I grabbed my iPhone while needing my second coup of coffee. I see the video didn't work when I looked at "preview". So this is a photo right before I started a video.

Cletus Continues To Do Great

Lots of photos tonight ...

It's been 72 hours and he acts like he has lived here since he was 8 weeks old. Of course he loves his walks. I am still making adjustments to the harness to get it to fit perfect. He doesn't mind when a car or truck passes by us as I lead him off the street and sit on the edge of a yard until they pass by. I still have to figure out something on these walks though. Dogs and hounds left behind bark when they see us leave and walk away just like all the neighbors dogs do when they see me walk by their house. 

Cletus Loves His New Bed

This is my 2nd post on Sunday morning. South Central Bloodhound Rescue put his adoption announcement on their Facebook page yesterday. Down below his announcement was another where two bloodhounds that lived together before being an "owner turn in" were adopted together. So it was a good day Friday for the rescue service. Rick was telling me that he was headed to St Louis on Monday to pick up two litters of Bloodhounds, different owners and a third location to pick up another owner turn in of an adult bloodhound. He will train that one just like he did Cletus at house which sits on 20 acres of woods/trails.

Cletus Is Part Of The Crew

This is the first of two posts I am doing this morning. Cletus has blended into the daily routine of the others and is part of the crew faster than I could have hoped for. It feels and looks like he has been here for years. The day started at 4am local central time when I wake up hearing his ears flopping and his tail hitting my chest as he does his wakeup shaking. He came from eastern time zone so to him it was his normal 5am wake up time. That woke up everyone except Walter ... who continued snoring loudly during our trip outside in the dark. 

Say Hello To Cletus

After the deal with Red fell though on Friday on October 25th, later that night I searched bloodhound rescue sites and found a website I had looked at over the years South Central Bloodhound Rescue.

Once I saw him I knew he was the one and I was reminded things happen for a reason. I didn't fill out an application but sent them some questions that I had about him. The listing said he was located at a fosters house in Indiana but he had been rehomed multiple times. 

The initial vet thought he to be the same age as Watson, he is neutered and the only red x in his writeup was that he didn't like cats. Sounded pretty good to me. I hit the submit button and went to bed.

The next morning as I was getting the day started with the hounds and dogs breakfast, my coffee and turning on the computer ... I saw I had an email reply back from SCBR, that was sent at 4:15am my time ... but they were on ET. I was shocked, happy, actually excited when I saw where he was located ... Linton Indiana.

I was expecting someplace up north a few hundred miles but that near my old "stomping grounds" where I lived before. Bloomfield, where I lived before, is 12 miles from Linton. So this trip was going to be pretty simple and no others were needed to help out.

Getting Closer To The New Bloodhound

This is Cletus, the bloodhound I am going to adopt from South Central Bloodhound Rescue. I am in the final stages of the adoption and as of right now I will be getting a day and time I drive up to see him and bring him back to the crew. He is a 4 year old, spayed male. I will talk more about him after he arrives.

Ava Chases Squirrels

Late Friday afternoon started out calm while I sat in 79° weather hanging out with the hounds and dogs. Even Walter made it outside. But with a rustling of bushes behind the fence and seeing a couple of squirrels running down a tree trunk ... Ava went wild. Henry, Walter and Watson didn't feel the excitement in Ava's performance.

I'm Going To Foster The Bloodhound

A lot of readers saw my post last night about finding an owner for the bloodhound in Michigan. I had only one comment from Vern out in Idaho telling me he did not have room but hoped she would find a new home. Times are tough right now for dog rescue or adoption. My three local shelters are overflowing with dogs and many are in foster homes. 

So this morning the lady that a bloodhound friend gave me her name yesterday, asked about me fostering the hound and she would make all the arrangements to transport her to me at no cost to me or the owner. This is what she does, bloodhound transport. She is into bloodhound SAR and has 4 bloodhounds at her house since 2014 along with a network of people to transport bloodhounds.

I presented the offer to Red's owner, not knowing what she would say. But she wants Red out of the outside elements at night as much as I do. Plus Red is alone all day with people working 9-5:30pm. Ava would keep her busy and Watson would have another large hound to play with like he did with Samson.

She agreed with the arrangement and we agreed too that if I decided to have her adopted to someplace different I would contact her first to see if her situation had changed to take her back ... but we also agreed that if I find out I can handle five in the crew and two bloodhounds and decide to keep her, that she is mine for good. 

So as of 9am local time, pieces of the puzzle are being put together to have Red transported to my house.

Never a dull moment in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana ... 😂😂😂😂

Can Anyone Rescue This Beautiful Bloodhound ???

This is on Facebook's page "Rescue Bloodhounds". You can search for that page and then scroll down until you see this ad. Carrie Langley really needs some help re-homing "Red". Red is a 4 year old spayed female, she gets along with other dogs but prefers to eat alone. As usual, anytime a divorce takes place lives of dogs might change and in this case it has for Red.

Due to no fault of Carrie's, Red is now sleeping outside at night instead of inside as a house dog. She has been an indoor house dog since she was bought as a 8 week old puppy. She is so gentle, house trained and likes riding in the passenger seat of a car or Jeep. Carrie is needing to find a new home for her due to her work schedule and travel. She has stayed out side with no fence wearing a GPS collar and enjoys being outside during the day.

Watson & Ava Play Fetch

Doesn't that look like a large vase of Hydrangeas? My neighbor told me I could make some money with those because people dry them out. I am not sure if the garbage man will take them 7:26am lifted and dumped into their trash truck like that since they are bigger than the trash can and the lid is not closed. I guess I will find out early in the morning. If he doesn't I will go to Plan B and cut them shorter and then jam them down into the trash can for next weeks pickup.

A Busy Day With No Spare Time

This morning was so routine I actually forgot that it was Friday. The hounds were up early to eat, play a little and by 7am they were back in their sleeping positions for short naps. I got in a bike ride for an hour after 2pm while it was nice and hot for a change. Then cleaned myself up, updated my private bike blog for record purposes, eat some late lunch/early dinner and cut up a fresh pineapple. Not much else to say tonight but it's great to see progress in the hurricane damaged areas. 

Blog Sidebar & NC Hurricane Survival

Just a short post this morning to show we still have a pulse and I have made some changes to my blog sidebar, plus adding more posts to fill in the empty space that was created with the long list of "blog topics". I will go through and decrease that list to something more readable. 

This was Walter a year ago, so you can see not much has changed the past year as far as morning routines. I will post later today with hounds and dogs photos but just wanted to get this post out this morning as an update. 

Hounds Fight !!!

It started out as a calm game of fetch between Watson and Ava. Henry laid on the patio and watch them run toward the ball I was throwing across the yard. I decided toward the end to change things up and threw the ball higher so it would bounce on the patio. It went high but too short and barely hit the patio, bouncing into the yard. It was close enough that Henry decided he wanted the ball ... they stopped fighting when I yelled, but by the sound it was going to get very ugly very fast.

Amazing Reactions To Last Post

I put this palm in a larger pot today, watered it really good and let it spend the day outside on the patio. After all that I realized after seeing the downloaded photo I didn't get it low enough in the pot to where that based is covered in dirt. I like you, see roots. The roots have plenty of room to grow though, so maybe next spring or summer I will repot it again. You can tell by that photo, most likely this is a pretty boring blog post.

Reputable Charities

Football Saturday in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana. This was deleted by mistake the other day. 

Water Company Excitement

With the predicted Hurricane surge hitting us this weekend, starting Friday ... I did all the yard work on Thursday. Besides mowing and trimming around the inside and outside of the fence along with the driveway and landscape edging ... I took the weedeater and buried it in the ditch that had formed where the Bradford Pear tree use to be. After they cut the tree down 3 years ago, they ground the stump but fill the hole back up with wood sawdust. I think covered it with topsoil and new grass seed. 

No More Hounds Or Dogs !!

A trip to see the bloodhound in the no-kill shelter was all I needed to finalize my craziness, a decision. No more hounds or dogs. The vibe wasn't there when I saw her, talked to her and petted her. She is a different story at at different time. I knew walking back to my car the urge to rescue a dog from the shelter was over. For some reason I just didn't want any more than I have. There were other changes too after I got home. These photos are from today.

I'm A Transport Volunteer

You may have heard me lately complaining a little about about the holes that Ava has been digging. When I saw her first hole I thought it was a sign of a bored puppy but after reading more about the German Shepherd breed, it's in their DNA ... it's what they do. So today I see I have a Facebook message from my cousin, the one that kinda talked me into getting Ava so she would be in a good home.

This picture is in the Facebook message with a note ... "Ava's sister". Her sister looks a little bigger also.

A Lot Of Yard Activity

 

Ava and I only saw one rabbit today but early Sunday morning I counted four of them, sitting motionless in that area of my neighbors yard. Ava will sprint to the fence and bark once she sees one but it's strange that there was no response from Henry and Watson about what was in the neighborhood.

Basset Hounds are bred to hunt rabbits. He sat on the patio and started at the rabbit but nothing else.

Hounds And Dogs Love Football

As you can see the hounds and dogs love college football on Friday night, on FOX. 

A Few Changes

I was going to talk about a few changes since my last post and right off the bat trying to start this post, some of those changes prevented me from loading photos to this blog using Safari but works when I tried Firefox as a browser. Also the photos did not load in the order I wanted them too so at least fore these first three photos I will change my thoughts on what I was going to talk about into the order of the photos.

Blog Contact Address Change

Sometime back I was noticing some strange traffic on my blog that Blogger furnishes me. A certain country was blasting my blog with traffic. I just figured it was normal website indexing by bots and I still feel that is the reason for the majority of the traffic. It was just unbelievable numbers in page views/visits.

Not soon after I noticed this increase in blog traffic, my Apple Mail filters for junk mail was being overwhelmed with junk mail sent to the blog email address on my blog contacts page.

That email address had been used since October 2011 when I set up this blog. Normal mail from people that have that address would show up in my inbox. I have all gmail forwarded to my Apple Mail on my computer and other devices.

I went through the inbox of bhounds3 on gmail this morning to find the few people that use that email to communicate with me. Those people need to change my email address in their contacts to ---

houndsdogs4 at gmail dot com

I have always spelled out the gmail address on the contacts page because it was suppose to filter spam mail and keep the email address from being hacked. That may or may not have worked, since I do use that email address for different companies that I sign up for or different apps that need an email address.

I basically used it over the years for times "they" needed an address and I thought it might result in tons of spam or junk emails.

I do know the new address works for my blog as an administrator, as Blogger calls it. Feel free to send a test email to the new address to make sure you have it typed correctly in your contacts.

Once I do all the email changes where this bhounds3 was used I will delete the account never to be used again or to receive any more emails. The number of spam emails is just unbelievable also.

Rain Finally Comes

If you had seen my local tv weather forecast on Thursday night you would remembered the damage I had from storms in May and July. The hurricane residue was going to rip due north and by Friday we would be swamped with heavy rain and tornado warnings or at least a tornado watch. I didn't feel anxious about it because I have seen all that damage eventually fixed and things get back to normal. So I was somewhat surprised what happened. Luckily the forecast was wrong.

Ava Had A Great Day Today

 

This is my second post today.

It got up to 87° today but it never felt that hot, so the windows stayed open all day and Henry kicked back most of the afternoon. He didn't even feel like getting involved with the game of fetch later but he was very happy to see Watson ... story below.

Two Post Day ???

As nice as this day is so far and it's not even noon, combined with taking a lot of photos this morning while monitoring the actions of Ava keeping her total freedom in he backyard, I decided to do a blog post early. I wanted to update what has happened so far this morning in comparison to what I wrote about yesterday. So this may be the first to two blog posts today.

I Have A Digger

Latest update at 6:15pm I found a mole track about 25' long following the fence just inside it. THAT is the sudden change to digging in the yard. Yes a hole here and there over the summer but the last two days was along that fence line but I didn't see any mole tracks at that time. Tonight those tracks were big enough to step on to get the ground back level. At least I have my answer because I was sure she was getting enough exercise.

About an hour after I posted this I heard a "yelp' from my computer desk. Ava wasn't around. I had a feeling I would see something she had done. Most likely crawled under the fence because it does flex and then didn't know how to get out. She would not come out the way she went in so I bent over the fence and lifted her out. This is something I don't have time for.

Hounds And Dogs Enjoy Football

The weather was fantastic on Saturday. It is even better this morning at 55° as I put this post together. I also found out some tv service answers yesterday with my good test of 13 hours straight, watching college football. The hounds had "their" patio door open all day and could run, play, and sleep whenever they wanted. This screen shot is from YouTube tv that I was trying out with their 5 day free trial. If you have never had YouTube tv, they will give you 21 days free. That 4 way split screen is nice.

Apple Watch SOS System Works

 

The upper back of my head made that hole. I don't why I fell and do not even remember falling. I got all of that information from my Apple Watch and the back of my head. All I remember is going to bed around 9pm and the next thing I know I am standing in my bedroom by that wall, holding my Apple Watch in my hand and using it as a phone as I talked to my nephew. He had called asking if I was okay.

Damaged Palm Repotted

When things are quiet early in the morning and no hounds or dogs are within eyesight sleeping, then something is up. I get up from my desk, quietly walking to the patio to see what is up. Just as I pick up the Nikon, I see these two coming in with looks of "we've been busy". I glance around the room quickly and see nothing out of place. At least the tv is still up on the fireplace so that is good. LOL

Guess Who?

 

Any guesses who did this while I was outside mowing the yard?

College Football Saturday & Rambling

This will be a very short post but I wanted to show you what the hounds and dogs do while I watch hours and hours of college football on Saturdays. It was another HUMID day yesterday but lower temps. Walter is not shown because I took all the photos while sitting on the couch during the game commercials. Walter was back in the cold computer room snoring. I start rambling after the hounds and dogs.

Shelter Dogs Euthanized

I stepped outside and stood on the patio this morning around 7:30am. I had been up for a little over an hour and it was already hot enough to feel it. That is the only way I could describe it. My friend and I were heading out for a short easy pace bike ride by 9am. The ride went fine but I didn't feel much breeze and the air created by riding a bike, was hot air.

A Bike Ride Before The Heat

It had been 10 months since my last ride. That is sad considering before that string of not riding started, I was riding outside 2-5 days per week up to October 2023. After that it was one excuse after another not to ride. I used so many of them, it is too long to list them. Yet today showed me the routine again, not only to keep the dogs safe while I am gone in HOT weather but one that I can use every time I ride with a new puppy.

Burned Some Weeds Today

It is back to being hot today, 92° currently at 2:19pm. You will see later what the other three are doing along with Ava. She is blocking some of that AC air that comes out of that vent. Last Thursday I think it was, I bought the Lincoln Electronic Inferno Weed Burner. The instructions were a few paragraphs of nothing so consequently I didn't operate that nor the propane bottle correctly.

I May Ruffle Feathers Today

I am talking off topic today. Long and Rambling Nothing about yard work where we need rain badly and nothing in the forecast for weeks. Nothing about hounds or dogs besides Ava is growing and Henry's growth on his tail is not growing. We go to the vet on Monday to get a second opinion. What I may talk about may ruffle feathers and my policy always has been when I write that way ... I don't care.

Today Was Deletion Day

 

It's been an interesting afternoon I guess. Weeks of thinking came to a decision point and things started getting deleted. Because of doing that, a LOT of BS should move out of my life. There is a point in time you just get tired of all the BS and it's time to clean out things.

History Was Made Today

Sunday morning started off with the normal two cups of coffee as usual but I had a plan today. In fact it was a project of a different sort. After checking a few pet shops in recent weeks and months, I decided to take a trip to Rural King. 

When I use to buy Diamond Naturals dog food there I noticed they had a big selection of dog toys and dog supplies.

The goal today was to buy three collars, including one for "no neck" Walter, so I could walk each of them. Walking is now back on the daily schedule since the temps have cooled off, especially in the mornings.

I soon changed my plan for dog collars after I saw this. I always wanted to try one of these and I liked the climbing rope lead. That small black thing near the loop, is a "stop" so you can instantly adjust the length of the "collar" after slipping it over the head of each hound or dog.

I know it is hard to believe but this one item made my dog walking expeditions so much easier ... no collars to put on, since my dogs don't wear collars, except Ava. They don't fight having a collar put on but they squirm a lot. They all stood there as I slipped this leader their nose and head. 

Perfect Weather Day

A perfect weather day that finds me, the hounds and the dogs doing a lot of nothing. We go out when we want, hang inside with cooler air conditioned air when we want and not much else. I see it is already a little after 2pm when I took these photos so we may not do anything else either. It's great to do nothing.

Is It A Cyst or Tumor?

I usually look at the ears, armpits and around the neck of each hound and dog for ticks. I haven't seen but a couple of ticks this year, so it was a shock when I saw a dark object on Henry's tail. It was hidden pretty well under the long white hair. At first I thought I was looking at the largest tick I had ever seen. I've seen hundreds of them in 37 years of having hounds. Looking closer it didn't have that smooth surface a tick has when it is full of blood. Besides that, ticks normally fall off after they fill with blood. Whatever this was, wasn't coming off.