Heidi's Story

With Google changing how they manage photos on Blogger a few months ago I cannot put 119 photos in order to tell a story like I did for Winston and Sadie. So all of them are in a random order and I can comment below a lot of them while those without comment is just to show how she lived her life.

Back in 2015 her skin allergies got worse and worse. I really believe it was a combination of grass yard, farm chemicals in the air, air from the highway and my dirty carpet that was old. $1,000's of meds, shots, blood work, four different vets ... couldn't find a solution.

I think she liked and was attached to Winston more than I realized. After he passed, her health and energy went downhill. She lost over 10 pounds, was lathargic.

There were days where she wanted to go out in the field to walk, to run and sniff the ground. She had a very strong nose.

She slept in bed every night and in those cold Indiana winters would not move from the sleeping bag on the bed. Notice the dark rings, swollen around her eyes? Allergy related.

During those allergy times ... epson salt baths for relief, tried creams, grain free foods, nothing worked.

She liked sleeping in the shade outside with the hot Arizona sunshine. Here the last morning here when it was cold, in the 30's, she did the same thing and I knew what was taking place. Animals try to go away into the wilderness when it's time.

Rifle Colorado SP Campground June 2015.

Same as above. As soon as I put the tent up, she was inside on the sleeping bag. She traveled well in the passenger seat but I knew she would rather be back home.

She loved laying and rolling in the grass. But .... was she allergic to grass ???

Henry really like her but she was pretty unresponsive to a new puppy. I did not know then just how bad she was feeling with health issues not seen nor on the bloodwork in January 2020.

What a crew that was ... LOL

Her favorite spot of the yard. She would spend hours at a time in this area of the yard enjoying he sunshine, the grass yard, privacy and the warm sunshine in Indiana. I never called her to come in from there, she always left on her own.

She was a great basset hound, I only wish I had gotten her as a 8 week old puppy and saved her from whatever happened to her the first year year and a half of her life. 9 years later she would still duck her head and flinch at times when I started to pet her head.

Her and Stella got along well. I think they liked each other.

She had some of the greastest full body shakes. Even in the middle of the night when she needed to go outside to pee in her last year, those body shakes or her tail hitting the door jam is what woke me up.

Keeping Winston company in December 2015 after he had hurt his back and couldn't walk. He was euthanized January 5, 2016.

She loved being covered up.

I caught her here while I was in the bedroom. I took the photo through the window screen, not wanting to interrupt her enjoyment.

It had to have hurt or bothered her with that raw skin that four different vets could not figure out. Very very skinny and the vets could not figure out what was going on with her.

This was when she was losing a lot of weight without loss of appetite. No vets could figure this out either. Her blood lab work showed everything was working normal inside her.

I remember this specifically. I had walked ahead of her on the way back home. I let her walk her own pace. I think she might have gotten a little scared in the tall grass (hay) because she came sprinting down the path acting as if I had left her.

She liked to ride. She always had the passenger seat but a few times she would jump in back when I had the 4Runner to lay down and sleep on the longer trips.

She did not chew on a lot of bones but she did like the bully sticks I brought home one day. She picked up Winston's bone the first minute she arrived at the house.

She and Sadie had chased a rabbit out of our yard all the way over to Hasler's. Stella and I were walking home from a walk. She was flying after that rabbit and baying like a good basset hound would.

I just noticed the open sore on the back of her leg. She always had skin problems, small tumors on her belly and a lot of skin tags.

Bad weather, rain, snow ... she always snuck out behind the Japanese Yews to do her business.

She was a pretty basset hound.

This is the new basset rescue a couple of days after I got her in 2011. I bought that bed for her but Sadie didn't take long to take it over, so Heidi slept on the bed with me until we moved to Arizona in June 2019.

Her very first walk in the field on a 25' retractable leash. They said I had to leash her at all times because she would run away. Not here, she did not wear that leash but this one time and never ran away.

Although Henry tried making friends with her, she never was close to the new puppy.

An 8 hour drive to Arkansas in the Hummer H3 to buy a trailer. That grass and quietness was a nice break for her after the long ride. Around 3:30am in the middle of the night I decided I did not want that trailer and we headed for home.

She LOVED the grass. 

We tried baby socks with diaper rash cream on her paws but that didn't work either.

NO VET could figure out a solution. This all went away after moving to Arizona with a rock yard and clean air.

Riding shotgun next to the food container, June 2015 heading for Colorado and Utah.

Here favorite spot in the computer room. Taken a couple of weeks before she passed. 

Out for a local drive around Bloomfield in the Mini Cooper.

She looked in pain here. I thought it was her lower back but I was wrong ... it was lymphoma taking over.

Just like the front yard in Indiana, she loved the hot Arizona sun in the winter. So did everybody else.

Thanksgiving Day 2020.

Laying on the floor of the exam room just before being put down. Her eyes were gone even though they look open here. She never blinked her eyes since leaving the back of the FJ on the gurney. She was a great basset hound.

How could you refuse adopting a basset hound as pretty as she was. I drove 4-5 hours to northern Indiana to pick her up. She literally talked the first 20 minutes of the drive home none stop telling me her story.

As usual when cancer takes over any hound or dog, by the time you see the signs it is too late. She wasn't the first one I have lost to lymphoma over the 34 years I have had basset hounds. It was a sad sad drive home from the Benson Animal Hospital on December 15th. It never gets easier.

I think of her daily.