Watson's Story

Watson was a big bloodhound. Strong boned, huge feet and tall when he stood on his back legs. He did that a lot when he would see someone either when we walked or someone near his fence. He wanted to get up to eye level with them. He was taller than I was and when at the vet in 2024 he weighed in a 132 pounds while still able to see his waist line. My neighbors said they loved hearing him bay, houses away.

I had lost Stella only a week before as I drove over to Paoli Indiana to take a look at the last four puppies available. As I got out of my FJ I could here the adult hounds baying and barking up behind the house. I should have known then I was getting a loud bloodhound. Something that my past bloodhounds didn't do, bark or howl. 

I had studied the breeder's website. He requested a phone conversation before he would decide whether to let me buy one of his puppies, where most of them are SAR dogs all over the USA. I told him mine would get the walks in to exercise their nose but that is as far as any traing would go. After a two hour call he agreed and I took the drive east. I KNEW I'd be leaving with a puppy.

Watson was the only pup that seemed interested in meeting me. As soon as he walked over to me and moved up on my lap as I sat on the porch, I knew he was the one. He would be my first black and tan bloodhound as I had all reds since 1997.

He didn't mind the long trip, sleeping up to a mile away from the house. It was good he was rested because I had a basset hound and english bulldog that was going to wear him out playing.

The fence wasn't here yet. Henry managed with his attached anchored rope and Walter would never leave the yard plus the grass looked a lot better. 

A few months later Watson's daily nose down exploring was in this area but inside the fence line. So much it was hard to keep grass growing around the fence border. He did the same thing the morning he was put down. 

He was growing at a rapid rate and I knew from size of his dad and mom that he was going to be the biggest bloohound I ever had.

He was pretty easy to house train. His breeder started that training early so he was used to going to the patio door when he needed to go out. 

He latched on to Henry and followed him everywhere. 

I didn't know at the time but that would end up being "his corner". He spent a lot of time in that corner looking at people walking by, sometimes with dogs he would jump up and down and bay at them. It was also a good spot to watch out for squirrels or the neighbor, where he would also jump and down and bay outloud. That is going to be his final resting place.

He would taste anything to see if it was a food source. That would cost him at the age of 6 months. Emergency surgery and about 5" of a mexican blanket pulled out of his intestines. Last Thursday the vet said that surgery had nothing to do with his intestinal issues that killed him but it sure did play havek on his daily digestion of kibble from that time in 2021.

"His" love seat was a good way to guage how fast he was growing. 

We moved here at the tail end of the pandemic in June 2021. I have since read the pandemic turned the vetinary business updside down with more dogs, puppies, cats and kittens to take care of ... it was rare if they would take new customers.

I called 16 vets in this area when I moved here, telling them I had just moved here and not one would let me make an appointment. I was told about this vet 27 miles away and left a message on their message machine that I had a bloodhound that probably needed emergency surgery and I would be there when they opened their doors the next morning. He wasn't looking that good to me. 

A hour after we got there he was under sedation and surgery it was. I picked him up the next day before 3pm and made the 27 mile trip home, where Walter and Henry were thrilled to see him. Watson only wanted to rest and sleep.

They made sure their big black bloodhound would be taken care of.

All of that rest and sunbathing helped him heal faster. 

A few months later he would experience his first snow and back to playing. 

He would sleep sitting up at times. 

His first experience eating ice. 

He loved playing fetch. Reminded me of Sadie when he did that because she did too.

He loved just hanging out in his backyard. 

The daily fence line check to make sure the yard was clear. He would do that a couple of times per day. 

Oh he was loud when he would bay at the squirrels. I checked with every neighbor in both directions, asking if that ever bothered them to be sure to let me know, yet every one of them would laugh or smile and say "we love hearing Watson bay". 

In good weather they would set there for hours waiting for that first squirrel to show up. 

February 2023 I got a call telling me I was his last chance or he was going to be put down. It was Watson's littermate (brother). He was the one I liked the best when looking at the photos of the puppies before driving over. But a family picked him about an hour before I arrived.

It was a re-home situation that I wasn't going to do at first because of his history of attacking people. But I thought with a fenced yard, plenty of exercise and another bloodhound to play with, that it might make a difference. 10 days later I found out it didn't. Sampson's story is on his own page at the top of this blog. Watson loved having another hound or dog as big as he was to play with.

He always had a pretty good view of he street in the aftenoons when people and their kids would take their walks in front of the house. Again meeting one of those walkers while I was walking myself, I warned him of the big black bloodhound jumping and baying at them. He laughed and told me he loved that dog and how he sounded.

They had to wait for a while but that squirrel finally showed up. There is a good example of what Watson did every time he saw one. It is also a good example of how he looked on our walks whenever another person(s) walked or car/truck drove by. I would have to stop him in place and hang on for dear life while he went insane.

With his littermate gone on Febrary 2023, a year later Ava showed up unexpectedly. She latched on to him just like Watson did to Henry when he was a puppy. She was going to help him lose some of that fat he had gained over the years. Up to 132 pounds was too much and I knew that would be hard on his knees and hips later on.

She would get him to run after her even as a small puppy and would out run him from one end of the yard to the other end and back. Back and forth. By the afternoons Watson was exhausted. 

He loved playing fetch and all she wanted to do was run, run after him.

He always acted that he knew how much bigger and stronger he was compared to her.

They would play hard most good weather days and still hang out at the end of the day.

When the hot temperatures would arrive in June, he knew there was a air conditioning register straight across from Henry. That cool tile felt good to all of them.

It was the seond storm in two months where trees were across the fence and in the yard in 2024. He supervised the tree cutting, hanging of power lines back up on the poles and out of his yard.

He had found one of my baseballs in the computer room. It had fallen out of my mitt on the CD case or he might have taken it. He liked taking things off of shelves, tables, or my desk.

The ball didn't last long.

I found something more durable for him, easy to grip with his jaws. I tossed that ball at him before we left last Thursday. I didn't know how bad of shape he was in and for some reason was laying in the corner of the yard in the back. You can see the corner I am speaking of in the next photo.

I thought it was strange at the time because it was the first time I had ever seen him laying in that corner. As the ball rolled to his nose, he just looked at it and then at me with a bloodhound face but didn't move. I knew then something was wrong with him.

Those two woud do laps back and forth across the yard from one side to the other. She is fast and he could never catch her but it was great exercise for him.

By October 2024 Ava had found another bloodhound to run into the ground. Cletus tried his best but could not catch her. He is also loud like Watson was. 

Watson claimed that love seat when he was a puppy soon after he arrived in July 2021. He wasn't so sure he wanted to share it with Cletus but they never fought over couch space, bones, food, balls etc. They were best friends and I would catch them many times both sleeping on the dog bed in the bedroom. As recently as last Tuesday night. 

At times he really would sleep sitting up, just like his mother did.

When those February days teased them with great weather, where you think winter is over, they all headed out for some warm sunshine.

When he would trot somewhere with his tail curled like that ... he had locked in on something he did not want around the yard.

Then one night I had turned off the lights, shut the patio door like I always do in the summer and went to bed. Since the dogs sleep in different parts of the house I didn't think much about it when I did not see Watson in the bedroom that night. Getting up a few hours later to get some water a little after midnight I realized he wasn't in the bedroom, the computer nor his love seat. I found him laying on the ground not moving and panting more than normal.

Something was wrong and it's after midnight. 

That was last summer, 2025. He seemed to have lost some of his energy, didn't play a lot didn't fetch, didn't run with Ava. I had a regular vet 27 miles away but they were so booked up I was on a two month waiting list. I called others hearing same options, a couple wouldn't see him because he wasn't updated on shots. 

I could tell at least to me his stomach didn't look right. I felt it, squeezed and got no responses from him nor did I feel any tumors. I am familar with that feeling. Still his stomach looked abnormal. 

Then he fooled me and he was energized like a puppy again running all over the yard after Ava. Mabye it was the snow that healed him.

By this past spring I told my friend something is wrong with Watson. He has aged so much this past year. My vet has a cancellation we get in and the blood work shows his organs are working as they should. There was nothing that showed up but something was wrong. He had lost a lot of weight. His hip bones were nothing but bones on the back. You can you see in this photo how much weight he had lost.

Then not two weeks later he is crying in pain. By what he is doing I never thought it was intestinal, I thought it was his hips and lower back. Once again vets are booked up for a month. "No that isn't an emergency" so they wouldn't see me.

My friend swore by Doctor's Best MSM supplement that she or I would take. I looked it up on the internet and everything seemed fine for dogs. I got the ratio for a 115 pound dog and within days he is back to normal. Trotting inside in the morings to his food dish, jumping up on the couch, normal activities .. 

Granted like I mentioned before, he had slowed down a lot this past year but he was only 5 years 6 months old!

Then last Thursday I am hearing him crying in pain and find him out in his corner, panting, drooling ... a sign of severe pain. 

I could tell by his walk and with his tongue hanging out it was very painful and I was on the phone as soon as possible looking for a vet nearby and not 27 miles away.

Sitting here four days later and it's still hard to believe. 12:30 pm on Thursday he and Cletus are doing their normal moaning and talking to each other as I pour their lunch kibble out and less than two hours later I have lost my big black bloodhound.

I will never forget how he walked over to me and climbed up on my lap on that porch in July 2021, then finding out when I got his AKC registration that he was born the same day I left and moved from Sierra Vista, Arizona. Some would believe our time together was meant to be.

Goodbye Watson ... the big black bloodhound.