Heidi Joins Us For The Walk

For reasons unknown it's now a rare event when Heidi decides she wants to do the complete .45 of a mile walk through the field. Today was a surprise around 4pm when she cruised through the backyard and never stopped. Maybe it was the great weather with no humidity that had her in the mood for walking.


Between taking a lot of good pictures of her during the walk, trying to catch Sadie chasing butterflies and keeping track of Stella ... I ended up with 58 afternoon pictures to choose from. I am posting more than normal but there were just that many good photos of them.

Like I have said before, Sadie does not hurt the butterflies but loves chasing them. They are much too fast for her to actually catch. You can see Sadie making a quick turn trying to catch just one with two more butterflies up ahead.

Another rare thing is getting all three hounds into one picture. It happens but not much and is usually hard to do because they are always going in different directions, but not this afternoon.

Sadie gives me her best all-time photo for leaping at a butterfly flying away. It's funny how she leaps at them, yet my camera never catches her in that pose.

That orange flower is the one I would like to transplant to my front flowerbed. They bloom every year in different places in the field. Would it bloom every year in one specific spot?

Heidi's nose is just as good as those of Sadie and Stella. Maybe not statistically but with a purpose of flushing out rabbits.

A little orange in an area that is all green this time of year.

The pace is slow for all the hounds. Normally Heidi has hung back by now but I could tell today that he was going to complete the walk. You can see the gradual climb.

Compared to June 2015 I cannot believe how much better she looks. She is definitely back to her old self. I am not sure if it was the probiotics I was giving her, or the supplement the vet gave her a year ago. That vet supplement was the same as what she would give a dog coming out of surgery. She has gained more weight back than she lost in early 2015.

Walks with hounds are never fast, aerobic thresholds are never met but their noses are working a 100mph.

With extremely short legs, Heidi maintains her consistent pace.

That is until her powerful nose picks up a scent that needs identified.

Sadie didn't have anywhere particular to go nor was there anything on the ground or air that she was chasing. She just remembered there was another place that has some of that 'natural protein'.

The "fly-by" didn't bother Heidi ... she kept walking the same speed and no need to hurry.

I think by now you can see how I could take so many pictures in just one walk. We haven't even got to the butterfly pictures yet. There weren't many of them today. It was like the cool weather ran them off.

I am already walking along the back edge of the field. I'll not leave Heidi behind like I do Sadie. She will run if I call her name but I always give her time to go at her own pace. Basset hounds teach you to slow down and that everything doesn't have to be a rush to get there or finish.

She is about 12" tall at her shoulders, so you can see how fast the wild flowers, grass and plants are growing.

With overcast skies you would think rain is nearby but that will not happen until tomorrow and it looks like it might rain all day and most of the night ... if Wunderground is right.

I could barely see Stella still at the first corner of the walk. What is interesting, in less than a minute when I looked for her again, based on the time showing in the picture file, she has moved to the far right. She covered a distance in less than a minute that would make her almost have to trot or jog ... to escape.

Once I told Sadie "let's go get Stella" ... Heidi made a sharp left hand turn to take a short cut through the field to meet me.

Here she is back on the path again, walking the gradual downhill.

Still time for an interruption, with her nose telling her to check something out.

If I were to turn and face perpendicular to Stella she had already walked past me toward the north. This afternoon she did not even look up when I yelled her name ... she just kept walking. She had no intentions of walking in our direction nor back to the house.

Still after 'herding' her back to us ... there was just enough time to look at the butterflies.

At the pace these three amigos are walking I estimated our arrival time back at the house to be sometime Sunday afternoon.

It will be even harder to see Heidi in the field with a few more weeks of growth.

Their noses slowly lead them home.

You can tell by the cut grass of the yard we are almost home, but that seems like a mile away. Sadie and Stella are still checking things out in back of me. They met Heidi and I about the same time we reached the corner of the house.

You might think with three blog posts and a lot of pictures that I have spent all day in front of the computer. Without having to edit the sizes of pictures in HTML, to make them sharper in Blogger I can put a blog post together here much faster.

I also had to ride my bicycle for an hour and a half. Took time to eat and then took a short siesta before the 4pm walk. Of course when I sleep the hounds sleep. Maybe they have finally taught me after three years of retirement ... how to live like a hound.

I only changed the color of the blog template (WordPress calls them themes) ... so it might stay this way for a while. I'm not sure what it is but I am one or two things away from being a 100% satisfied with the way the blog looks.

I keep repeating myself but I can't believe the weather this summer in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... one of the best summers ever.

The Hounds Close Another Week

The pace the basset hound or bloodhounds live is pretty fast at times. They never know when the next chase of deer, squirrels, cats or even butterflies will take place ... so in the meantime they will fill their days with eating, sleeping and taking walks during the day. It's rough but someone has to do it.



It was pretty obvious as they ventured outside right after their kibble at noon, that the black cat that I have seen only once in this driveway area, had been through the property last night. It was too early to be sniffing for yard moles, so it had to be cat scent.

Contrary to popular belief Heidi really does get outside every day ... in the rain, hail, sleet or snow ... even on the sunny days. By the time I came back from checking on some things in front she had already found her favorite spot in back for some noon time sun.

Just as the expert weather guessers predicted, it never got higher than 71° but the sunshine sure felt warm on her back as well as the back of my neck. I like to think those few times she has went sunbathing over the past couple of years, were a factor in her recovery.

While I wasn't noticing or taking photos of Heidi, that gave Stella plenty of time to have some desert. Nothing like having some fresh brown powered dirt pushed up through the grass by the moles after lunch kibble.

She was in denial ... but her nose gave her away.

Combined with lunch and all of that energy eating dirt before she could get caught was too much for her. It was time for a short siesta and soak up some of that warm sunshine.

When I asked Heidi if she will ever eat dirt ... she looked at me as if I was crazy for asking. Doing that is way beyond her limits. Even though Sadie and Stella are fixed females they do a lot of things you would only expect from male bloodhounds or basset hounds.

Sadie never gave up letting me know she wanted her walk now and not have to wait an hour or two after lunch. To prevent the possibility of bloat those are the rules, wait an hour or two after a meal before a walk is taken. Me? I wanted to get back inside and finish the hard decision on which blog design to use.

By 2pm Sadie let me know that she had enough of all this blog stuff. I could surely have an answer about what design to use by now, besides it had been almost 4 hours or more in front of my computer.

About that time I found something that looked like it would work quit well, even if the there were no sidebars available. So with that 98% decided Sadie got her 2 walk of the day.

With the strong winds alternating from the south and then from the west, the temps stayed cool with all the house windows open. It was almost too cold for wearing a t-shirt. Once we got out side under the sunshine, the weather was perfect and the sky was bluer than blue surrounding the clouds.

When I caught 3 butterflies in one picture I knew the field was going to be loaded with them. What I did not know was just how much Sadie enjoyed chasing them. She never catches them to where she could hurt them but she loves running and jumping after them.

Her she is in her first step of sneaking up on them so they will not see her.

It doesn't matter how far away the butterfly will go, Sadie will not stop chasing that specific one until it is out of view.

Stella doesn't care about any of that and in fact will walk right by them, close enough that the butterfly and her sides touch. Yet just like with me, or the other hounds ... when Stella is walking somewhere she will walk on our feet like we were not even there.  LOL

Chasing butterflies was not the only thing on the afternoon agenda of the bloodhounds. The last I saw Heidi, she was stretch out about as far as a basset hound could stretch, sound asleep on the couch. Sadie and Stella had other ideas. They did their exploring on the morning walk so this afternoon was not going to be anything but finding and eating the "natural protein supplement" better known as deer scat.

It doesn't matter how many times you call each of their names ... they are not moving.

Stella already knew where she was heading, no searching would be required. She also knew that she was not going to follow Sadie and I on our walk ... she had other plans.

I kept walking around the first corner and head to the back of the field. I had a pretty good idea that Sadie would sprint to catch up to me and we would pick Stella up on the way back.

Sadie was so excited she didn't know whether to chase butterflies, sprint to catch me or keep eating stuff.

If you think she is finally running to catch up to me you would be mistaken ... butterflies were now tormenting her.

Then it would be back to the fresh deer scat.

Just as I had guessed, there was Stella exactly where she was yesterday and the day before during her early afternoon walk. It will not be long before the wild flowers, weeds and grass will be too tall in the field for me to see them easily.

I told Sadie to "go get Stella" and she was off to find her.

I could see by this point I was going to have to walk over to Stella, grab her collar and coax her in the direction of the house or she wouldn't move.

On the way home what I thought the second batch of orange flowers, turned out to be two butterflies having their lunch.

So with some butterfly chasing, some walking and even some natural desert ... it was time to sleep the afternoon away until the 3rd walk of the day right before the Reds game at 6:40pm.

Like I said the pace of a hound life is fast and furious. Time flies and just like that they are ending another productive week. The hounds don't need one to tell them but my Garmin VivoSmart3 is telling me to "move" ... so it's a good spot to end the post.

I think I am actually set on this blog design. There might be a few more tweaks behind the scenes for me but you will not notice them on the blog. So far I like the change, it was a good move. I hope I can stay somewhat incognito for months to come, if not years.

Can the weather be any better than today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana?