A Bloodhound Nose ??

Basset Hounds are bred to flush rabbits out and into thick brush, the woods, a field or a backyard. To do that Heidi would have to get out of bed first and it's almost 11am. I have seen a Basset Hound in action though and Sadie (the WA Basset Hound) did just that, flush a rabbit into the thick brush where the rabbit stops in panic. The shoulders of the Basset Hound is made specifically to charge through brush so thick you cannot even walk through it.

The Bloodhound has the better nose though and is bred to track deer whether they are walking through a field or woods and after a hunter has shot them. A few years ago Sadie and Stella would sprint after deer they would see in the field but I haven't seen a deer in this field since November 2017.

From the pictures I take of Stella everyday you would think that she has a great Bloodhound nose but I have two pictures today, really just one picture but two stories, to prove she either doesn't have a great nose, or maybe she lost focus or maybe since it wasn't deer scent she didn't care. Yet we all know how she loves deer scat. Her nose story continues.

As I walked over to get a better view of this tree limb, I practically stepped on a rabbit hiding in the brush. It was not more than a foot away from me when it took off sprinting toward the gully. Heidi has a great nose for tracking rabbits and no doubt would have been baying and chasing that rabbit as fast as she could. I've seen her do it in this field but not today, she was still in bed.

Stella had walked right past the rabbit no further away than the distance from the path on the left to the edge of the brush on the right. What, maybe 10' away? She is well past the place I almost stepped on the rabbit so she is not even close. Don't let that picture throw you off.

Now Stella does not have the worst nose in Bloodhound history because she does show signs of tracking deer scent or deer trails just like this morning. There were a million signs that deer had been running through this field a few hours before we made our appearance. I don't think you would want to see a million pictures of a deer hoof print in the soft ground so I have included just one of those pictures further down the blog post.

Sadie was 'the tracker' ... strong strong desire to track scent. Stella has a more relaxed approach to her tracking. I have no doubt that she would stop immediately if I mentioned the word "food" or had some small bone treats in my pocket. THAT is one thing she can track ... any kind of food or treats.

In my lightweight down jacket I was enjoying this Saturday morning walk with no wind to speak of. WeatherBug said it was 34° but my carport thermometer said it was 42°, so I kept picturing that 42° in my head as I walked. Hard to believe it will be in the teens on Monday for a high temp of the day.

I let Stella go where her nose led her. After all she is a Bloodhound and looks as if she is tracking something. So I veered off my path to follow her.

You can barely see a path straight ahead and that was made by deer traffic. The camera did not capture the path as clear as my eyes.

This is a little better view of a deer path cutting across the middle of the field to the left of me as I followed Stella.

Looking at those two pictures you would think that I am entirely wrong with my assessment of Stella not being a tracker. She looks professional in each of those pictures. Remember how much she loves finding deer scat and adding that to her kibble diet as more protein? Remember how good her nose is supposed to be?

Well she literally walked right over the top of not one of these piles of deer scat but the second pile not two inches away. HER NOSE WAS DOWN LESS THAN AN INCH ABOVE GROUND !!!! How did that happen? Too old? Too new? Not hungry? Lack of focus?  :)

This is one of the million pictures I took this morning of deer hoof prints in the soft ground. They were everywhere, from right on my path to all over the field. So there is deer still in the area, I just have not seen any of them.

With her tracking scent over this morning, she starts the slow walk home. When I say slow, I mean even slower than that. Each step is in slow motion so that you wonder if that front paw is ever going to touch the ground. She walks like she is suspended in air as I anxiously await for her to catch up to me. I'd like to get back to the house for a brunch I plan to make sometime today.

Then ... a sudden burst of energy where she is almost running BUT she has to do a full body shake at the same time she is running. As her body goes forward trotting, her ears show that her head is moving left to right back and forth as she shakes. Who needs a good Bloodhound nose when you have agility like that?

Obviously after five weeks of the lamb based dog food instead of chicken as the main protein source, that has not made a difference in her scratching. No fleas that I can see. No red bumps, no skin irritations. It just itches.\

With another Saturday morning walk in the books she was energized to get back inside so she could sleep. Her and Heidi's eating schedule is off today, way off. All because of Stella.

Since I was in a deep sleep I have no idea what woke me but when I finally came out of it I heard hound toenails making a sound on the hardwood floor as if they were pacing or moving back and forth. At first I thought it was Heidi because she kind of tip toes in the dark but then I heard a stomach making a gurgling sound ... that is always Stella.

So I got out of bed to let her go outside. It was pitch black in the house and outside because it was 4am !!! While she trotted off around the Mini out towards the field, I put on my lightweight down jacket and slipped on my cheap Chinese flip flops and headed outside with my bright LED flashlight. It wasn't that cold outside even while standing there in a pair of Russell Athletic Gear gym shorts.

I could see as I stood behind the house she was straight out from the house halfway between the yard and the woods. She had found some nice tall, possibly wet grass to eat and was eating like it was her last meal. Luckily when she was finished she trotted to the house where I was standing. It may have been more about me sneezing than her being obedient.

Of course, since I couldn't go back to sleep I got up. Computer on, lights on, with Heidi still sound to sleep. Stella was checking out the dog food container to see if the lid just might be off or loose for her to grab some kibble ... at 4:15am!!!

Finally after 30 minutes and hearing her stomach gurgling again I decided that maybe some kibble would settle her stomach. Of course as soon as that measured cup of kibble hit Stella's stainless steel bowl .. Heidi woke up and came sprinting to the computer room because breakfast was being served.

Yes, they both had breakfast at 4:30am.

Just like their normal routine after breakfast, they both went back to their dog bed and slept soundly. I never heard Stella's stomach gurgle again after that. So you would think by now as I type this both hounds would be barking and howling for lunch but they are both asleep ... that's what happens when you get up at 4:30am.

I did get back to sleep for a solid four hours of sleept. Thus the late start for the morning walk.

I have a basketball game I want to watch at noon. Right before that I plan on having eggs, with steamed spinach right there in the cast iron skillet and warmed up salmon. This change in eating is really helping and I continue to feel the change in appetite and the amount of food I eat in a day. Getting under 1,500 calories is not intentional but is easy to do with what I have been eating.

Otherwise, I have no plans after the ballgame is over. The book about Steve Jobs is a very slow read but at the same time it is very interesting. I bought the book when it first came out four or five years ago but never finished reading it. So that is the plan, read the book from start to finish.

I'll see what Heidi has planned for this afternoon but I can almost bet that it will not be much different from the pictures I posted last night about her afternoon. She might stretch her threshold down to 60° but until then don't expected a lot of active pictures of her outside.

Hard to believe we are 29(?) days from April.

All is good this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella Tests My Sanity

She looks so innocent doesn't she. Just a big, happy-go-lucky, loose skin ball of fun. Don't get me wrong with what I am about to write this afternoon. I love all my hounds, even Stella. I knew when I 'rescued' her in August 2015 what her issues were. I was going to be her 4th owner in her first 6 years of life. She is the most funniest hound I have had in 31 years of having a hound every year. Like some dogs and some dog readers, we all have our hidden issues don't we?

She was more than I had bargined for in the 'damage' department. Oh yes ... unbelievable damage. Some so destructive I would be embarrassed to post photos of it. (I never will) Her severe separation anxiety was a mystery until I found her original owner and breeder on Facebook. Basically to cut a long explanation short, you can read what happened to her here to cause her anxiety.

Some people say, like her previous owner, it takes a different type of dog owner to have bloodhounds ... they are so different in many ways from other breeds.

One of her habits didn't show up until her first freezing winter in 2015 since moving here. When I say obsessed I do mean obsessed. Even a gentle tug on her collar wouldn't work and sometimes a harder tug on her shoulder wouldn't work ... but she would never growl at me. She was like a 80 pound anchor that wasn't moving. This morning was the same thing. Here is her addiction ... deer scat.

Since I am not a deer hunter I had to do some searching on the internet years ago to find out what this stuff was. This morning was the first time I saw it this color. Most of the time they are deep black nuggets. This type could be from elk, llamas or deer. Here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana, deer is the only possibility.

Where I could always let Sadie lag way behind us on the walk, knowing eventually she would be seen sprinting as fast as possible to catch up to Stella and I, I cannot let Stella lag behind like that. I tried one time only to find out she never came back home. A little more than an hour later I had to retrace my steps.

That day a few years ago I found her in back field over by the 'deer highway' in the far right corner. She was in the same position you see her today ... head down, inhaling as many of those nutritious tiny morsels as she could.

Needless to say, in today's morning walk the eating of deer scat was the objective in her point of view. No, not enjoying the quietness, the crisp temperature, or the sunshine just barely shows on the horizon ... her main objective was to EAT ... and that makes this short 12 minute walk seem like a lifetime.

Still with her separation anxiety only showing up a few weeks ago for the first time in 17 months, she is a fantastic house dog. She always goes to the door to go out, nudging the knob with her nose. If the handle was the lever she would open the door herself.

She will howl like you think a bloodhound sounds minutes before she is fed twice per day. Although, unlike Sadie, she is not a protector of the house. Any stranger at the door is her friend not foe.

There is no doubt you have noticed too many changes with how the blog looked the past few days. You will be happy to know this is the final design and I love it. I feel this will be it for many years to come like my other blog on Blogger, where I stopped blogging to come here.

It took some work to get everything the way I wanted it. Then when I thought I was finished, it had a hiccup this morning only pointed out by an observant reader. The Old Fat Man was trying to make a comment and couldn't see a way to get there.

While drinking my 1st cup of BLACK coffee to escape my sugar addiction, some smart Wordpress techie pointed out to me what I had forgotten to do. It was something at the start of every post, just like I was doing on my older blog. That was the simple click of the icon for inserting the 'read more' tag. That little modification will 'the OFM' and other readers an easier way to see where to make a comment and it gave me the front page that I was looking for.

I took this picture this morning looking directly into the sun. I decided to keep it, and post it because to me it looked cool ... it's hard to tell if it is sunrise or sunset.

After one week I see a system developing here. A little change from the prior blogging routine I had which was writing about what had taken place from 9am to 9am the next day, one post per day. Then sometimes weeks of nothing.

Here I planned on writing more than just about the hounds or the daily morning walk. I was going to move some personal thoughts to these pages and that would possibly mean multiple posts per day. I do have to resist sometimes not to post that 3rd post of the day.

Based on the traffic stats that Wordpress provides all of it's bloggers, I need to have that first post of the day to show up 5am-6am eastern time. People are clicking in early to read a new post but leave within seconds if they only see the post they read the previous day or even night. 'Schedule' is a great blog invention.

I also know that my blogging tendencies change based on seasons, the weather and my state of mind. So my plan is to write when I want, to keep those inner thoughts coming to blog pages. To prevent me from flooding you with my drivel I'll save them as draft copies to be posted at a later date. Like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter, I will be storing blog posts for the spring and summer.

Some will have photos, some may not. Some will be over the edge of logic and some may seem boring, even mundane. Some might make you mumble and shake your head and others might make you think. You choose.

For new readers, if you are into wild flowers growing in a field, or sharp pictures of butterflies, stay tuned-in here because that is a common theme in the spring and summers as we change from the frozen tundra here in the Midwest.

I will admit, with Sadie gone the blog's tone has changed a little. Heidi and Stella are the definition of the word 'laidback'. Heidi rarely takes walks in the field even in good weather. You've seen what Stella does, not much. Oh, when it's hot she will move to the backyard to take her siestas under the hot sunshine.

There are times I have to lay a hand on them to see if there is a pulse ... where Sadie was always looking for action and if there wasn't any she was just a thought away from creating some. Plus like I have said, I have not seen deer in this field behind our house in 13 months. I have seen them in the field across the highway a couple of months ago, but not here. So those high speed bloodhound deer chases are probably a thing of the past and nothing more than a funny memory.

That photo is about the best I can do to prove just how slow she walks right in front of me, to the point at times I stagger my steps not to walk into her. If I pass her, she will pass me back and resume her slow walking.

This morning was a little different. We had just entered the backyard upon our return when she stopped. She didn't sniff the ground nor did she look anywhere else. She just stopped like she was standing in concrete.

That small cord you see laying on the ground has turned into a 'marker', so I can find the anchor in the field that use to be used for Stella, Sadie, Winston and Heidi before I could trust them to roam tether free. I'll come up with a different solution by next spring for marking that anchor. you cannot pull out of the ground. It is made for horses and believe me, a shovel doesn't help getting it out.

As I got to the corner of the house I turned to see her not moving. What is this about ????  Ah, funny dog.

While I took a couple more photos around the house and sky, she needed one more scratch, making me wonder if there is something in the Glucosamine supplements that she is allergic to.

She finally decided it was time to come inside. While she slept I did my workout program, a few games of Mahjong on the MacBook Air with the best view in the house. You cannot give up working out just because you are not losing weight as fast as you want.

It was just a tad over 40° by lunch. I could see as soon as we were outside neither hound was too motivated to go too far. That was a good thing for me since I had just found out I had a lot of work to do on the pages of Winston and Sadie that are linked at the top of the blog.

The two different Wordpress editors don't play well together. Besides that I had copied and pasted both pages from my blog on Blogger in HTML format and pasted that here on the new editor so I could import photos and words at the same time.

That did not work this time. While checking the pages this morning for any errors many of the photos were not spaced and ran together where there was no content. I knew due to the formatting of the new editor my only choice was to start a brand new page for both on the classic editor and then reload all the images. (~100 each)

I was finished with both pages sooner than I expected and while looking at the hounds I announced to them this would be a "nail cutting, ear cleaning afternoon". No problems with Heidi, she likes getting them cut ... but her nails were too long when I got her in 2011 and I have never been able to get them shorter. The vets tried in September to cut them back while she was in surgery and didn't have much more luck than I have.

Stella was good with me cutting her nails when she showed up in 2015. No resistance until last summer (2018). At the last mini-second she jerked her paw, possibly tickled, at the same time I was pressing the nail cutters ... she yelp, I cussed, she bleed, and I had cut her nail toooo short. It all happened in a split second after getting three out of four paws completed. Today ... didn't happen ... she pulled a Sadie and took off running for cover.

You see that Heid's skin allergies have come back a little. That is normal for the winter months for some reason. That tells me it's environmental rather than food. Back in August 2015 I wrote in detail with photos about her skin issues she was going through. They just flared up the past few days.

Besides that not much went on. Stella stayed with Heidi behind closed doors in the bedroom without any breakout attempts. I made a fast trip to the library to look for some new reading material. No luck. I'll pull something off of my bookshelf to read.

Questions of the day --- Do you think it is safe to write the name of your town in a blog post? Some bloggers do, some don't. Is my paranoia showing itself?

What percentage of you stay home for the holidays? Who goes on skiing trips with the family? How many travel out-of-state? How many have Xmas dinners or go out to eat?

Just curious. I promise there are not any spreadsheets planned for those answers.  :)

Another bright sunny day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella On Her Own This Morning

It was time and I needed some kind of change on this daily morning walk with Stella. Plus I was curios what she would do. I decided before I went outside that this morning I would let Stella do what she wanted, go where she wanted AFTER she took one step into the field. That was my only requirement for this adventure. With no wind, the cool temps felt great and we proceeded through the wet field after a night of rain.

I was a little surprised she did not lag behind and eat the wet grass, one of her favorite meals but I would find out later that wet grass wasn't on her menu this morning. It's something I don't like her doing but what can you do?

The leaves are trying their hardest to change colors. A little late this year and not nearly as bright colors as past years.

I think you can already tell what Stella's interest was today. Maybe this experiment wasn't going to be hard after all, if she didn't move much.

That little open space in the lower left of the photo is a deer path they take either into the gully or coming out to the field.

Yes, you guessed right.

As I walked further away she was heading out to the middle of the field. As long as I could keep her to the left of me she could wander that part of the field all she wanted.

As I made the final turn home I didn't see any sign of her ... it's good if I don't see her to the right of this path.

Look closely, you can barely see her.

She saw me and immediately looked away like I wasn't even there. Ignoring all of my calls to 'come on' ... she went back doing what she was. At least I had put the collar back on her so I had something to tug if she was in a total stubborn I am not moving type of reaction.

Just about the time I was reaching for her collar, she spun around, hopped in the air and took off running ... it's all a game to her.  LOL

She changed her mind and decided the scent went left parallel to the old return path. You can see where deer have worn the grass down from their night/early morning traffic.

She wasn't happy when I ended her walk. She walked non stop to the door.

This squirrel use to drive Sadie insane as she sat inside looking at it from behind the storm/screen door. She is carrying one of those fruit balls that fall from the Sycamore tree. They really are called that but I've never had the guts to break one open and taste it. I'll see her 3-4 times per day walking back and forth along the top of the fence.

Heidi was positive the rarely seen 'field cat' had been walking in her area last night while we slept. Her nose led her around the house, one inch at a time.

Stella wasn't going anywhere after her lunch. She know that college football would be starting soon, that would last all night. She was already thinking of her daily afternoon siesta she takes.

I was serious when I said that Heidi's nose led her around the house ... it never came up for air.

I found out it wasn't real hard to delete my Facebook and Instagram accounts a few months ago. I am finding that it might be harder than giving up Pepsi and candy as I try to quit reading or watching the News. I am approaching my 48th hour of not reading any online news or tuning in on TV news. My Twitter account has always been a 'sports only' reader type account, so nothing to delete there.

I had to take some feeds off of my Feedly account. I decided I no longer needed to be informed. That was my excuse for checking news, then I would end up reading and getting mad. I'll stick with book reading, sports, playing Mahjong, walking the hounds ... basically anything that doesn't deal with any kind of News. A friend of mine told me he has accomplished this and feels 100% better.

The sun is trying to come out and that's a good thing here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.