Which Breeds Are Compatible ?

I decided to post something a little off topic from my normal stuff this morning. The hounds and I just got in from our morning walk. It will be about 30° warmer by late afternoon but this morning wasn't bad. I'll post the pictures of that walk later today as I try to combine a full day of information instead of halves of two different days.

I received an email yesterday asking if I would be interested in looking at a graphic they had made when researching just what breeds were compatible when sharing the same house. I guess they had noticed I had two different breeds and different sizes sharing my house after finding my blog.

Like I said yesterday, I've always liked and at times wanted a bulldog, maybe a mastiff or even mutts from the animal shelter. But for 30 years I've always had basset hounds and then my first bloodhound 20 years ago.

A few of them were from basset rescue that is linked in the upper left corner, a couple were from the local animal shelter. To be honest, I have never had a dog work out that came from a shelter but the two bassets I've gotten from Guardian Angel Basset Rescue in Illinois have been fantastic.

When I bought my first bloodhound I just assumed without any research, Max would get along with my two basset hounds Harry and Maggie. They got along great, never fought over food and as the temperatures got colder they slept closer together. The other combos I have had with different bloodhounds and basset hounds have always worked out, even though there is a huge difference in size.

I found their research at PuppySpot.com interesting enough to not only write about it but post their graphic for you to see, just in case you might be thinking of adding to your crew of dogs. I'll admit I was a little disappointed they did not cover the basset hound - bloodhound breeds and almost didn't post this because of that.

On a side note, my niece had a mini-dachshund years ago that did not like girls/women or other dogs. She was fierce and would bite people, vets and other dogs ... except my basset hounds and bloodhound when she would spend a weekend at the house while I pet sit. Here are a few pictures of her with Arthur on the couch and laying next to Winston. I will say though, she ruled the house when she was here and the hounds always stepped back when she was here and let her drink their water, eat their food, and sleep on their blankets.

She was small (4.5 pounds) but fierce.

Sleeping with Winston.

Who is going to move first?

So take a look at all of the different combinations of breeds they have found compatible and if you would, leave a comment on your thoughts and/or experiences living with different breeds in one household. I think you will find their results interesting.

If you have any questions about the basset hound or bloodhound breed getting along with other breeds, send an email to me or leave a comment and I'll answer. Throughout our travels my hounds have had visitors that were different breeds.

I had second thoughts about putting their website link in the upper left sidebar, so I removed it this morning. My decision had nothing to do with them or what they do (place/sell puppies). I've never had affiliate links, nor was their site an affiliate link, but I just didn't think it kept with the theme of my blog which is "living with the hounds in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana".

While writing this post I realized it was 30 years ago when I bought my first basset hound while living in Oak Harbor, Washington. Harry lived to be 13 years old and lived in Oak Harbor, then Breckenridge CO and later in this house in Indiana. Even as a 8 week old puppy he was a wanderer and that never stopped for the next 13 years. He was sneaky quick, disappearing within minutes and how he ever survived the highway in front of the house ... I don't know.

He would sneak off to the DMV in Oak Harbor a few times. I'm told he would walk in the open back door of the office and choose a desk to lay next to for his afternoon siesta. I'd get a call at work to let me know he was there. Here in 'the tropics' I'd get a call from the landscaping business just south of me, telling me Harry was sleeping behind the counter next to the cashier and that I could come to get him after his nap was over.

Enjoy your weekend and I'll be back later this afternoon or early evening with our post about the hounds and their day.

Some Hounds You've Not Met - Rambling Also

As I decided to do a little mid-day rambling, I also decided to defrost my refrigerator. It's old but I am sure it was suppose to do that by itself.

Frost built up in the freeze and strange noises told me otherwise.

It's the month for strange noises I guess, from the FJ to the fridge? I remember doing this in the past. The worst case is shopping for a new replacement no earlier than Monday.

I thought it was strange last night when I went to download my photos from the computer into Google Photos and Flickr, that I use for backup and save hard drive space on my iPhone and iPad. That is working out very well. The thing was last night I had only 3 photos downloaded for the day ... I guess I've had a lot on my mind since this morning I found out I forgot to download the camera card from the photos I took during the first of two hound walks.

As you can see I was getting ready to mow just as many leaves as I did grass Thursday afternoon. I'll still have to rake them and there is a lot of leaves still on the trees so all of this is going to move into November, while last year I think we were cleaned up for the year by the end of October.

With temperatures in the mid 40's this morning, both hounds were happy to get back inside after they dumped their tanks. I was to and those cooler temps made the coffee taste even better.

You can see the mower was set in the mulching mode instead of blowing grass and cut leaves out the side. They will be easier to rake also. But following my retirement policy of doing only one major thing a day IF I do anything ... defrosting the fridge is the main attraction today. Leaves? ... maybe Monday.

Around 11:30am, Sadie came into the computer room to let me know it was time for a walk. Stella was asleep but jumped up immediately when she heard the word 'walk'. Heidi has initiated her 'winter routine' and hides out on her camping sleeping bag. Even though it was washed last year, she probably smells some of Winston in there.

Stella started off going on her own walk. I let her do whatever she wanted but like yesterday, this afternoon's walk she will probably wear the 25' retractable leash with me not taking the camera.

The change of camera setting to 'single point focus' is doing exactly what I wanted for my pictures. I'll get bored enough in a few weeks to go back and study taking pictures manually again, then try that for a while. My old friend that has had Nikon's since I met him at college told me he has never used a lens hood. While I sometimes wish I had gone into coaching like I wanted when I was in school, he wishes he had taken that photographer job with National Geographic in the early 1970's. I guess we are both at an age to second guess career choices.

Leaving Stella behind on her own pace, I was walking the path with Sadie up ahead ... when I felt a nudge by a nose ... that is Stella's way of telling me she wants something. She will try to poke me with her nose to get my attention. If she is trying to open a door or FJ window she will poke that door or window with her nose.

As I was going over some last minute checking of the blue FJ for cleanliness before I drove to make the trade, I noticed up by the handle above the driver's window, the felt had light brown smudges on it. It finally came to me that Stella must have had dirt on the end of her nose when she was poking around the window looking for a way out.

This morning when I glanced back at Stella she was headed to what I called the "deer highway" a few weeks ago. As I was about to start walking her direction thinking I was going to have to keep her from going down into that gully ... I yelled "hey" and she turned toward me. She made the walk that much easier.

Overall she is a very very good bloodhound but stubborn as hell. More stubborn than Sadie or Heidi. Winston use to have a stubborn streak but its part of the bloodhound and basset hound breed.

I guess this is about all the leaf color we are going to get this year. Still time to change and still a lot of leaves on the trees. The temps will be back into the 70's next week so that might be too warm for them.

Stella is heading back to meet me and Sadie on our path. She knows there is deer scat up toward the corner of the woods up ahead. Lately they have both been running up there and eating before I can get there. Pretty smart for bloodhounds.

By the time we were getting back close to the end of the walk, the field was still extremely wet and my Oboz waterproof hiking shoes were working out great. I should have started wearing them a long time ago.

It looks like I have a lot of leaves that I will be raking in the future.

Well I think this "blog by invitation" is finally being worked out. I've had a lot of response to it, people seem to be okay with the process. I am pretty sure I have this right and if I don't, those of you that have Blogger blogs can correct me.

By me approving your invite confirmation -- all that does is give you access to the blog. I don't believe just because I have approved you with my invitation, that you will get automatic notices that I have posted something new on the blog. It just gives you access.

• I have been told that if my blog is bookmarked/favorite and you have approval, then the blog will open as it did before without any additional login by you.

Some of you that had subscribed by email or the RSS feed, have requested to be notified by email when I post something new. That is possible but Blogger tells me I can only add a total of TEN people for that Blogger automatic email feature.

• When I added my email address to test that notification, I received an email as soon as the post went public.
• Whereas the subscription by email or RSS feed took 6-24 hours after the post had been published to receive that notification.
• If you receive and read the blog from that email blogger sends, you have to go to the blog website to make comments, otherwise if you reply to that email you comments go only to me in my inbox, not on the blog.
• For some reason their first invitation did not work but the second one did without issues.
• For those that have the email sent to them, you still have to reply to the invitation that was sent to you, for me to approve so you can get into the blog. If reading the post by email is enough for you, that is fine.

Heidi's skin has stabilized over the past 12-18 months ... its still messed up, it comes and goes as far as irritation. Different dog food, with grain or without makes no difference. In fact, looking at dated photos, then looking at her Excel log to see what kind of dog food she was eating during those times ... dog food doesn't make a difference overall.

Bloodhounds are more attention driven than basset hounds. Stella wants more attention than Sadie and Sadie wants more attention than Stella. They both go to sleep though when I give all the attention to Heidi.

I took the Z4 out yesterday afternoon after mowing the yard. Top was up, windows closed and the heater about blasted me out of the car because it was so hot. It will be driven during the winter, but never on roads that are wet, or snowy. I do remember years ago in my other Z4, I put my down coat on, put the top down and drove my 42 mile loop on Christmas Day ... it got a little cold but the sunshine was bright.

People seem to like the color of the new FJ .. it's growing on me. The stock look instead of the radical blacked out look is also growing on me but at times it looks "too normal". It still has that new car smell that only dealerships have when they detail a used car. Stella continues to probe with her nose trying to get the back door to open. She knows there is a way for her to get inside.

I found out while looking at some older photos in the program that Apple furnishes with their computers, called "Photos" that a lot of my transferred photos from their old "iPhotos" had lost their original file. Typical. So I did a little reading online and found a iPhoto Library Manager in my Apps folder which fixed all the issues with the missing files.

While I was looking through iPhoto I came up with some photos of past bassets and bloodhounds I've had over the years. I have more hounds not seen here but I have to scan their old print photos first. Here are a few of them.

This is Arthur, who was Winston's Uncle. They had the same mother different fathers. It was interesting that Winston look almost identical to Arthurs father instead of his own. They were both two tone, whereas Winston's dad was almost all black.

No, that isn't Sadie ... it's Bertha, the bloodhound I had before Sadie.

Arthur looked different than Winston of coarse since his father was different but they had identical personalities. Ironically it took a sad accident where Arthur died for me to even think of buying Winston that following summer in 2004.

This is Kila. She was a Mini Dachshund that was my niece's. At times we would be her pet sitter. She loved the larger hounds and did not hesitate eating their kibble out of their food bowls when I poured it out. She thought their food was her food ... no questions asked. She basically 'took over' the house when she stayed her.

It looks like my couch has aged more than I have the past 13 years. Yes, that's a younger Winston laying next to his good friend Kila. They would sleep together the times she stayed here.

A whopping 5.5 pounds of brutal strength. She would have to be muzzled to have her nails cut and there was never a vet she didn't like to bite.

I picked up Max from the same basset hound rescue service I bought Heidi ... only about 14 years before Heidi. He weighed 84 pounds at the time and barely could get into my Miata when we made our 4 hour drive back home.

By getting him off his daily cottage cheese to to a better dog kibble, then getting him on our walks into the field ... he lost 21 pounds over time. He was just a big big basset to get much lower.

This first photo is after he LOST the weight.

Same field different hounds. At that time I had Max, Maggie and the bloodhound was Bertha.

Even though he spent his last 5 years blind ... she still liked to run on his daily walk as long as I had the leash on him.

That's Winston as a puppy laying next to Max while Bertha is letting me know its better inside where the air conditioning is on. Sadie is a lot like Bertha's personality.

Well enough rambling ... I need to go check out the fridge and see how that dreaded task is coming along.

Another nice day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Stella Had A Perfect Day Yesterday

The move was so quiet, few noticed. No, not Stella ... the blog!  I was going to wait and then I decided not to. I had everything I needed updated, except the comments made on the WordPress Blog. Now there is a thought I just had ... hmmm, no don't even think about it.

Anyway, I could have copied and pasted all of the comments from the old blog I guess, but there were hundreds of them. Plus there wasn't a way of bringing your user name and blog link in that transfer. With a working converter that was required, comments would have come along for the ride.

I can live with it.

Next came the color and design of the older blog. I was planning to keep it but you know what happens when I have too much time on  my hands. It was not intentional but when I was finished, the blog template in Blogger looked almost like the theme I used on WordPress. I don't miss the header image the other blog had. My other sidebar had about 40 photos from the past. Some readers liked it, I liked it ... so I added a page at the top of this blog with some of those same photos listed. I will add more as I remember what I had listed before.

The redirect of the domain name was  painless and took just minutes before the .net address started transferring all visitors to the new residence. If you want, you can change all of your bookmarks back to the www.houndsandrvs.com. You don't have to because the .net side of the house will bring you to the same website. Even my old blogspot domain will bring you to the blog.

It's good to have everything, 4+ years of history under the same roof again, if you know what I mean.

Stella Stella Stella ... what a mystery.

The tests continued yesterday, keeping her in the room with Sadie and shutting the door. All tests were different amounts of time. I drove off a few times for short trips. All of the periods of time she was confined in the bedroom were short. Each time I opened the door to let her out ... there was zero damage. She was awarded in a positive way. Yes, dog treats were involved. Heidi and Sadie approved of the payoff method for Stella's training. I am beginning to think that all three hounds are hoping I leave more often now.

By early evening I needed to restock the kitchen. It was a short trip, a little over an hour. I quietly walked to the door when I returned not hearing a sound. I knew that both bloodhounds would be at the door waiting for it to open. It's the bloodhound way, with each one wanting to be the first one out the door.  I was expecting the worse ... nada ... not one piece of evidence she had been upset or frustrated while I was gone. She didn't even move the heavy chest of drawers to dig at the wall. There were no signs anywhere she had been upset.

Don't get me wrong ... I was thrilled with perfect results. It's just mystifying. What is getting her so upset at different times, different periods of time, to go crazy and tear stuff up? Living in the country means no pedestrian traffic walking by the house. Animals are not usually seen on this end of the house. The squirrels, the birds, an occasional rabbit are always seen on the south end of the house or opposite from where she is located.

Claustrophobic?  It seems like if she were, then every time she was shut up in a room 12'x15', then the results would be the same. I mean Stella can't be claustrophobic just certain days of the week.

The training will continue with positive reinforcement, even if it's nothing more than the time it takes me to walk down the driveway to the mailbox and back. On those trips I let her run the house but I also raise the blinds in the living room so she can see out the window. She looks at me every step of the way.

No matter what, Stella is and has been a great bloodhound since she arrived August 30, 2015. She has been great for Sadie, who didn't realize how strong she was as she tried playing with Winston or Heidi. She was leery at first when Stella arrived but they have been basically inseparable since that first day.

A few months back I mentioned I would start showing photos of the hounds I have had in the past, along with a short story about them. I had my first basset hound in 1987. I moved to this house in 1997 and since that time, I've had more basset hounds and bloodhounds than I ever planned on. The number of hounds at one time would range from 2-4 but most of the time 3 hounds seemed to be the common number. Many passed on at young ages due to cancer. Most lived to be 9-12 years old, but a few didn't.

Max was my first adoption from GABR in 1999. He was located in Peru, Indiana about 4 hours north of me. From the one photo supplied I just thought he was a basset and the size of car didn't matter. It almost was a bad bad mistake. Max was the biggest basset hound I had ever seen. They said he was 100% basset, but he was huge, way outside the AKC specs. The car I chose to drive that night in the middle of the week was small ... like really small ... a Miata, a 2-seat sports car.

As he walked out into their living room to meet me, the lady told me "he doesn't eat his dog food (Purina) unless you put cottage cheese on it". I found out the next day at the vet's office, that combination of cottage cheese on top of his Purina Dog Chow had him weighing in at 83lbs. He couldn't walk 30' in the backyard without sitting down to take a break. The daily hound walk was the same in 1999 as it was yesterday in 2016.

I took him off of the cottage cheese diet immediately, moved him to some quality dry kibble and walked him daily ... while slowly building up his distance without taking breaks. A couple of years later I had him down to 62lbs where he stayed the next 7 years. Of course being a lot longer than I had planned and heavier ... it was fairly exciting fitting him into the passenger seat of the 2-seat Miata.

I still had to shift the 6-speed manual transmission and that stick shift was now located somewhere under his right shoulder for most of the drive home. He slept most of the 4 hour drive with his butt pressed up against the passenger side door, shoulders across the console/gearshift and his head either on my knee or hanging down on the driver's side foot area.

It wasn't long after his arrival in the 'tropics' of Southern Indiana, I noticed one day that he was trying to walk back inside the house but was 8' to the left of the door. My suspicions were confirmed the next day ... Max was 100% blind at 5 years of age.

That didn't slow him down though. For the next 7 years he took the daily walk. He played with Arthur and later decided he new friend Winston wasn't a bad basset hound to hang out with.

Max's eyes didn't work but his nose was stronger than ever

Blind and leashed he still liked getting his running in

Winston's uncle Arthur would always give Max a lot exercise chasing him

That's Max, Winston and Bertha enjoying a hot fall day in the 'tropics' of Southern Indiana

The temps have dropped this morning to feeling very cold but it's still high 30's and we have yet to see a lot of days of single digit temperatures. It's been a good winter so far in the 'tropics' of Southern Indiana.