Perfect Weather For The Hounds & Dogs

Perfect weather today for the hounds, dogs and I. They played most of the morning while I rested horizontally most of the morning. Not sure why but I am dragging in the mornings any more. Coffee isn't helping so I will have to change to a different brand. Mowed the yard again, which happens about every four days this time of year. No plans tonight but watching a little of the Reds game. The scheduled starting pitcher drives me insane so I may be moving to a book or a movie soon after the game starts.

Saturday Night Live

Saturday morning started off sunny but cold, around 40°. Normal morning routine. A trip to the grocery store gave Ava a chance to prove to me she was good on the loose with the other hounds and dog. She passed the test in flying colors. She continues to do well in her day to day living. Sunday will be interesting as I attempt to cut her nails for the first time ever. She has no problem letting me hold her feet or touch her pads so things should go well.

Friday Night Baseball

Friday Night Baseball on AppleTV but not the Reds game. I pick those up on Bally Sports Ohio every game. I don't like them but they started wearing the MLB "City Connect" uniforms on Friday home games. I cannot tell if the Reds are 'contenders' or 'pretenders'. It's early, three missing out of the starting lineup due to long term injuries. Hovering around .500 in a tough Central Division.

I'm In A Rut

For some reason in all this great weather, Walter and I rarely get out of the computer room. There the windows are open, a cool breeze keeps the ceiling fan off. He sleeps and I read the internet. I have not captured that annual spring cleaning feeling that I always get and end up doing a deep clean throughout the house. Why? Where's the energy?

Ava Showing Personality

Late start to the day due to low energy. Have the backyard mowed and the fence line trimmed in time for storms after 11pm supposedly. Even in the afternoon the grass was still wet down by it's roots and it has not rained in days. Ava is starting to show some personality now. She still looks like she is getting taller by the hour. Feel tired but it's been a good day.

Ava Growing By The Hour

She stands taller than Henry now. I don't have to bend down so far to pet her. She gallops at times when she runs inside or outside. She obeys "stop" for playing. She "come" when called. She turns to face me when she hears her name. She is going to be a good dog. But like a friend reminded me today with a photo ... months 4-24 might be terrible. LOL

The hounds and dogs may have felt the heat more than me because it never felt like it was 85° with the windows open and a good breeze flowing through the house.

Ava Starts Leading Activity

She is quiet. So far she only barks when she is playing. She will follow me but isn't clingy. She knows hand signals and a some commands. She has been here nine days and a great addition to the crew. Even Walter was back to normal this morning for the first time since she arrived and that was good to see.

Posting From Firefox

Comments are open and back to normal. My first test this morning for posting photos on the blog worked. I am doing this using Firefox instead of Safari. All I needed to do was clear History on Safari and it works there too. It was a great day yesterday and will be today with highs in the 80s. The hounds and dogs loved the time they spent outside. They were playing so hard that Ava ran into the computer room by herself panting for air. Henry followed her but never made it past the entry way as he laid on the hallway floor to cool off. I am repeating myself but she has been just a fantastic puppy to live with. Smart and learning commands. 

Snow Melts Under 32°

The day started off at 19° and very very bright sunshine. It stayed that temperature for almost three hours before the heat wave hit mid afternoon where it rose to a high of 26°. The temps didn't bother the hounds and each time I let them out I practically had to drag them back inside. You can tell the hounds and the dog had a pretty good day today.

Kodak Slide Scanner Works!!

Warning: Lots of photos and story telling involved.

If you remember last week I received my missing Kodak Slide Scanner but there were two issues that made it inoperable. The SD card would not lock in the slot which is needed to save the photos to that are converted from slides or negatives. Photos from that SD card are then transferred to your computer or TV screen, your choice. It also would not work once plugged into three different computers. I took it back for a refund, then ordered another one. I did not want to ship it to my house but to ship to the Best Buy store where I could pick it up. They texted two days earlier than planned for me to pick it up.

We Still Have A Pulse

Has it been almost a month since our last post? Hard to believe because we really haven't been that busy doing things. The weather has been fantastic for this time of year yet when I look back through these photos ... nothing out of the ordinary has been going on. I guess ... just watching football and waiting for the leaves to fall. As you can see Walter is pretty content with his fast pace way of life.

Nothing But Photos

 

A Saturday full of football and a couple of games on Sunday ... a lazy weekend as you can see. Only photos today ... things are good though.

Is Summer Over ??

 

I was going to write just a paragraph and list all the photos of the hounds but there were too many 'topics' just to do that. Now I see after loading all the photos into the blog at once like I always do, they are in reverse order than what I wanted. So, here we go with a little commentary below the photos.

A Quiet Saturday For The Hounds & Dog

 

Hard to believe it was a week ago tonight where a lot of things changed around here. It's going to take a pretty long time to forget it. The two previous owners of Samson and I have analyzed, talked and asked many questions. All of us have second guessed what we did, then why we did it. Thanks to Lynn and another reader that commented, all three of us had a better understanding on what happened with Samson. In hindsight, there were some red flags after we read about "rage syndrome". There is a lot of moving pieces to that puzzle, all with a sad ending.

Birds Or Squirrels ?

Stepped outside a little past 12:30pm today and it felt like a day in April. It was 42° and April is still four months away. The day was still nice and with a jacket and hat on, it was nice to sit out on the patio and enjoy the sunshine.

Nothing Exciting To Report

As we move into our second fall here in "Pleasantville" the weather has been fantastic. Daytime highs reach the 70s and it is not freezing at night while the hounds, the dog and I sleep. One thing that is happening which is not good for this weekend's time adjustment, is we have been going to bed way too early and waking up way to early. Early enough that the hounds don't get fed immediately but they are happy to wait an hour or two for the regular time for their breakfast. It is I, that is getting up way too early, so they sleep.

What Is That Sound ???

I was at my computer minding my own business enjoying the cool temps with the windows open. I heard a sound that didn't sound familiar yet it was in the neighborhood. Did someone get a new high powered mower? I didn't see anyone mowing their yards from the view of my computer room window but from the sound of it whatever it was ... was huge!! On occasion  I will hear the train but that is much further away from the neighborhood and this didn't sound like that train. No, this sounded like it was right in the backyard. I step out on the patio and see the two hounds trying to figure out what that loud strange sound is.

Leaves Hounds & Walter

 

Blogger is at it again as it listed my photos in reverse order than I sent them. In this post that will not matter because it's going to be all photos about Walter, the hounds and leaves. Leaves are starting to fall and change color. As you can see Walter was not interested in getting his photo taken.

Almost Back To Normal

The hounds look the way I have been feeling most of the time these past couple of weeks. My head has been feeling much better with each day passing. I would say I have been doing normal stuff around the house inside and outside. I drive without any problems. I have done some yard mowing and built a new small flowerbed on the side of the garage. I don't feel my head throbbing when I sit up or when I get up out of a chair. I have not tried riding the bike indoors yet to see what reaction I would have with a high pulse rate for an extended period of time. I have ridden the tan bike that came with my VW bug .1 of a mile to my friends house up the hill and around the corner. So things are good, I just wish I didn't feel so tired.

Sadie and Her Separation Anxiety

Since the first day I brought her home as a twelve week old pup, she has shown separation anxiety. I thought after we moved past year six that it would change. In a way it has, she doesn't destroy things now, just tracks scent and drags it out for her own use and to show me what she has found.

It is always my stuff and not hers. She seems to follow The Bloodhound Laws that you can see here at the bottom of the page.

In the case of the photo on the left, she spent a lot of time hauling her red blanket from the floor to my bed for a little siesta while I was gone. This happened some time ago.

After a couple of years I spoke with a different breeder than whom I bought Sadie from and she explained to me what and why Sadie was doing what she was doing. At the time there was a lot of destruction involved while I was gone anywhere from 10 minutes to hours. While I was at work, she was kenneled for her first four years to keep her safe and my possessions safe. But during short periods of being outside she would get into stuff.

The breeder had acquired Sadie's dad and their personalities were almost identical. The breeder said she gives her puppies a test at forty-five days old to see if they are trackers or couch potatoes. After I answered four out of five questions positive, I found out that Sadie was rated as a tracker and the reason for her nose to always be in the working mode. It was the reason during the times I would be away that she would get into things, drag them out for me to see when I got back and some times destroyed.

The breeder said if I had bought Sadie from her, she would have given me a pup that tested out to be a "couch potato" instead of one that tested high for tracking. She would not have sold me Sadie. I had originally picked out a different bloodhound pup at first but changed to Sadie because she would follow Winston anywhere he went and would try to get him to play. She was the only one of eight pups that did that. Now I found out that when she followed Winston that showed a tracking instinct more than the other pups.

The two basset hounds can stay anywhere in the house while I am gone, no matter how long I am gone without any problems. I found out a couple of years ago the best room in the house to keep Sadie was in the bedroom. She sleeps on the floor at night, had familiar smells and fewer things she could get into. I also put the two bassets in the room with her to keep her company with hopes of preventing any tracking activity. I no longer kept her in a kennel due to her size compared to the largest kennel you could buy for inside use.

Overall things have improved a lot the past few years and now things she does at times are funny stories rather than getting home and pulling what little hair I have out of my head. Of course at all times when I am getting ready to leave, I have to put a baby gate up not to block the door because I shut the door, but to keep her from getting into my closet.

Her "specialty" use to be, get into the closet (sliding doors) and chew just the plastic tip off of the shoestring and only one shoe per pair. Honestly, there was never a time when both shoes had the tips chewed off, just one shoe per pair. There was never a time when the shoestring was chewed up ... just the plastic tip. I wish Nike, New Balance, Merrell would sell the exact same shoestrings for the shoes they sell.

So where this post is going is what happened yesterday. It was time to mow the yard and the normal procedure is to put her in the locked bedroom while I mow the backyard, then bring her outside where she is connected to her 100' climbing rope so she can roam in the field behind my house while I mow the front yard.

For some reason yesterday I decided to let her roam the house with the two basset hounds (they sleep the whole time). After finishing the backyard in about fifteen minutes, I moved to the side yard and glanced into the bedroom window to see if Sadie was sleeping on the floor or bed. No Sadie anywhere.

As I moved by the side window for the living room I glanced inside the window to see if she was in the living room. There were two basset hounds sleeping by the window on the floor, no Sadie anywhere.

In my small downsized house there are not a lot of rooms left to choose where she might be but I knew exactly where where she was. I mowed along the front of the house, shut it off and then as quietly as I could I walked into the house and glanced into the room where I have my computer, desk, dog blankets and the large rubber container full of forty pounds of newly acquired dry dog food. Like she use to do in the past while I was getting ready for work, she had removed or knocked off the lid, TWO 15# dumbbells and moved the lid to the side. This lid also locks to the container once you push down on the edges.

Someway she can get them off. The dumbbells are on the lid to keep her from getting into the food, even if I am inside the house. Usually during the time I am watching ballgames in the living room.

As I glanced into the room I see a wagging bloodhound dog tail and her head inside the container eating dry dog food. Luckily I had caught her soon enough to where she had not eaten a large amount and that would decrease the potential for her bloating. Bloating is common in large breed dogs and luckily she has never experienced that. Eating large amounts of food though could set that off. It didn't look like she had ate that much, still it was only an hour after I had fed her the regular meal.

When she saw me she knew she was in trouble and caught red handed. She took off in a sprint to her dog bed in the corner of the bedroom, laying there like nothing happened. With that bloodhound innocent look like asking me "is something wrong"?

Words were not needed ... she knew.

I babygated the closet doors, shut the bedroom door and then went back outside to finish mowing the front yards. It had been one of those days where she didn't want to be outside and would bark until I would bring her back inside, so this time I left her inside.

I began thinking and wondering what she would do or get into if we were in an RV or trailer and I left all of the hounds inside the trailer while I was out hiking, mountain biking or grocery shopping? There would not be a room I could shut her up in if I had a trailer. Temperatures would determine if I could leave her in the FJ while shopping. In a motorhome I could gate her off into the back bedroom where she could still get into things.

This issue with her and me being gone has always been in the thought process, asking myself if she would ever be a good dog to RV with. Would this separation anxiety also determine what kind of RV I would buy?