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. 

To find a different room to feed him to prevent any possible fight over who's bowl is who's, I opened the mudroom door to the garage and that is where he has his meals. So far after a day that has worked out well. Once it became 7am I figured my neighbors could handle any baying from Cletus in case he saw a squirrel or rabbit. It was within minutes I let all the hounds and dogs outside, that he and Ava started playing and as you will see, Watson and Henry got into the act. All of this action was before 7:30am.  LOL

As I predicted Watson was not happy with my adoption of Cletus, just like at first he didn't like it when Samson showed up in February 2022. It was not until late Saturday afternoon that he decided Cletus was cool and started following him, playing a little inside and outside. Ava is another story though, she has really attached herself to the new bloodhound. They both slept near each other last night on the bedroom floor. 

Ava is faster than all the hounds and will get the bloodhounds to chase her from one side of the yard to the other. So that sprinting is about 140' each way, not including the times that she circles to get away from them. She did the same thing with Watson once she got bigger. 

The leaves continue to fall. Last year I mulched them outside the gate but raked and mulched them inside the gate on different weeks. I will probably follow the same procedure this year. Mulching them inside the gate will be the last thing I do. My trash collector will take the leaves as long as they are inside my trash container which is where they go when I rake the backyard. 

The foster did not know how old Cletus was. He said the vet that checked him after they captured him running the streets in Salem Indiana, thought he was around 4 years old. His body is smaller than Watson's because of the time he spent running loose plus IMO he wasn't fed properly as a bloodhound puppy. His head is of a 4 year old and his body is one of a 2 year old puppy.

This morning there was an email from Adopterluv telling me they had photos of Cletus to give me. I knew nothing about them. The Greene County Shelter sent me 70 photos from what they took, so I really wasn't sure what other photos those would be. There were only two and looked like when he was in a shelter after capture. The interesting thing was, they had a birthdate of February 9, 2021 listed for him.

It is only an assumption that they got that from the original owner so I will go with that date as his birth date. From what I heard that may have been the location of the original owner.

Henry's tactics, even when Samson was here, is to stand on the patio as they run back and forth in front of him and then when he thinks the time is right he will try to intercept Ava and slow her down or make her stop while she is running. 99% of the time ... he can't accomplish that.

You can tell that Ava is at full speed as she turns to circle back to the right and Watson is at full speed thinking he is about to catch her. Cletus thought she was going to continue to the other side of the yard but has to turn suddenly.

Ava's first sign of fatigue.

Her pace has slowed to get away from the three in pursuit.

Ava's pace slowed enough that Henry became a factor in the chase game.

Friday I caught Henry with his nose buried in that rock right behind the pooper scooper near the wall. I go out to investigate and see where a mole has been crawling in that area. I stepped on the raised rock that is now on soft ground and put it back at ground level.

While watching the football game yesterday with the patio door open for the dogs to go in and out at their leisure, I heard what I thought was my furnace turning on but I remembered I had turned it off early in the morning. Slightly confused, I see the big red combine pass by that tree from my view on the couch. I took this photo though standing on the patio during a tv game commercial.

My next post right after this will be photos from Football Saturday and how much Cletus loves his new orthopedic thick and soft dog bed I bought for him. I knew there was not going to be enough couch space if I chose to adopt him, so I bought the bed to put in the great room for him to use while the others are sleeping on the couches when I watch games or movies.

I have not found anything he does wrong except ... he is a professional counter surfer. He doesn't mess around either. He is big enough that when I caught him surfing his nose was across the counter close to the wall. Luckily I was up so early Saturday morning I had cleaned my kitchen from top to bottom and there was nothing he would find. He did understand the word "NO", immediately.

He lays with the others in the computer room while I drink coffee and read the internet. He also likes to sleep on the couch in the living room which I call my game room. He loves those large windows in the living room and has let me hear his loud deep bloodhound bark ... yet he will stand there and look out those windows silently while other neighbors are outside.

My next door neighbor said he called him by name Friday, his first afternoon here, and Cletus walked over to the fence wagging his tail and Jeff petted him through the fence. Jeff knew his name from my Facebook post. I told Facebook friends that I was driving up to see him and most likely would be picking him up. 

Cletus is definitely a "lover boy", he loves to put his paws on me and tuck his head close to me to get a hug or get petted. He also understands what I tell him. Or if I am standing he likes to lean in to me. When he did that at the meet and greet, the foster was happy to see that. That rescue organization had became very attached to Cletus and made extra sure he was going to a good home.

With the time change, the sun is coming up at 6:22 central time.

Going to be a lot of dog walks today here in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.