We Are Back To Blogging Publicly

I cannot really go into why we are back blogging publicly since it's too in depth to explain, would take too many pages and I still might not have all the answers to the question 'why' ... but here we are back to blogging publicly with plans to continue. I am not sure about the frequency though but this is a start. I will say before I get started that all the hounds are doing fantastic and I think you will see that Sadie has not changed, Stella has gained all of her lost weight back as has Heidi. These photos were taken this morning, and Heidi's were taken in the past 10 days as she prepares for wintertime hibernation.

I can't say there are any drastic news announcements since our daily activity is about the same. The weather is trying to stay cool but it's still humid most days. We get 2-3 walks in per day yet Heidi is back to boycotting any kind of activity that takes that long to complete the walk. She is not into counting how many steps she takes besides from her couch to her food dish.

Sadie as usual leads most of the walks while I have been letting Stella do her own walk, letting her go where she wants as Sadie and I pick her up on our way back. As far as deer go ... their noses need calibrated. Last Thursday on our afternoon walk, with both of their noses to the ground I heard tree limbs breaking only to see as I glanced into the woods a large deer turning and heading away from us down into the gully.

The hounds never knew how close the one deer was to them.

ATV traffic has continued but mostly only one neighbor riding late afternoon after school. I have a feeling that he has mounted some new field cameras that he checks daily.

I feel really good about Stella regaining her lost weight. I think if you look at them from the side it is a little hard to tell which is Sadie and Stella ... only the collar shows it's Stella. Nothing has changed since February as far as kind of dog food and not too much of an increase in quantity.

I can't say that I have finished and marked off many things off of my 'to do' list since we last blogged on the Wordpress blog sometime early September. When I went to reconstruct this blog, evidently I did not do a backup of that Wordpress blog that I was using as my main blog from August 1st until the middle of September.

I did have a backup .xml file of my old Blogger blog that was dated September 15 ... yet that was only posts, comments and pages ... not the template nor settings. So I have tried to rebuild the template into the same Blogger blog I had before deleting it. I'll slowly be making more adjustments, getting it as close to the old format as possible. I have added the Blog List with as many blogs as I can remember that I was following. I'll more of them as I find their url's or remember them.

A few weeks ago they removed those 8 rolls of hay that were parked in back of the field. Sadie is checkout those parking spaces in this photo. There is never a walk, no matter how many per day where she searches and explores most of the field.

While we were walking along the back of the field, Stella was way behind us ... in the middle of the lower part of the field.

After a couple of days of rain and overcast skies, you can see we are not having a lot of fall colors yet.

We have an alternate path on the way back now. I might have mentioned before, but it angles toward my north property pole. Luckily today when I called Stella's name, she turned around and headed our way to actually walk with us back to the yard.

She went from this pose of ignoring me to trotting into the yard without me calling her. I was facing the opposite direction when she ran past me ....

For the first time in 8 months ... she played, and wrestled with Sadie. Sadie may have felt it was time because as soon as Stella's front paws hit the yard Sadie rushed at her wanting to play. Stella returned the favor and they were off for a short period of time. I had to look back through the blog 'topics' of "Bloodhounds Playing" to see the last time I had blogged about her wrestling ... it was in February.

The high winds from last night cleaned up a lot of the yard that was full of leaves, although very few have fallen from the trees.

With my old Central Air Conditioner going on the repair list during the hottest days a few weeks ago ... I had to add a small window AC for my computer room. That small air conditioner pumped out more cold air than my older central air unit. Estimates are telling me it's around $3,000 for replacement. I'll have the fall and winter's cooler temps to come up with my next plan before next summer.

Since I was up too late last night watching college football from the west coast .. we woke up late and the hounds were more than excited to stop playing when they heard the question "do you want to eat" ... they stopped immediately and ran to the door of the house.

These next three pictures of Heidi were taken the past 7-10 days. She enjoys time outside by herself and will spend almost 1 hour outside before she stands in front of the door to let her know she is reading to come back inside. She never barks to let me know but knows that I am checking on her to see where she's at.

I have not taken her over to the vet to get her weighed but the times I have lifted her into the FJ, she 'feels' like 45 pounds, her normal weight from 2015.

With a lack of sleep, another full day of NFL football and trying to rebuild this blog ... I'm a little tired. I'll add more information from the 3-4 weeks we were offline (blogs deleted) but really ... you didn't miss much ... daily routine stays the same.

All is good for all of us here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Heidi Was Out First For Afternoon Walk

Normally I would have waited and included this in Sunday's blog post but I thought Heidi deserved her own post on her afternoon. There were quite a few readers that followed the blog when Winston was alive ... they were basset hound lovers. Since Heidi doesn't get out much there are only a few of those readers left and enjoy any kind of news about her.

When I announced that 'we are going for a walk' to Sadie and Stella, I heard Heidi jump off the bed and she went running to the door. Could it be true, that she wanted to go on the walk?

When she took an immediate right turn to the front yard I figured that might be all she wanted. Earlier today after lunch she spent over an hour outside by herself while enjoying the warm weather.

So I was somewhat surprised when I turned to check on her and she was slowly running toward me to join us on our afternoon walk.

Just 6 months ago most of that front leg was bare skin. It wasn't raw and sore like it had been the previous two years off and on but the skin was soft and supple, with no hair. With the recent change to SPORTMiX dog food, she has had more hair grow and growing on her four legs than any other time since October 2014.

Some of the other bare spots she was showing up on her rear have grown hair back along with the outside of her ears. There were a few spots on each ear that was losing hair for some reason. I think we are somewhere in the 3rd week of the dog food change and she has never looked better.

While the bloodhounds hung back Heidi took off on the path to gain the lead with her tail wagging and her ears flopping from side to side.

Stella finally passed her and took the lead. I think she tried to intimidate Heidi by walking as close as she could next to her but Heidi did not budge an inch and made Stella walk around her. Stella has even walked on my feet if I am in her way.

A slight uphill grade here and since this is only her second walk of the season I assume she is not in the best walking shape but even today Heidi would trot in different parts of the walk. It didn't take her long to regain the lead.

Does it look like she has gained some of her weight back?

She stopped to pose for the camera but once she heard that shutter pressed she was back to walking in a slow trot.

Sadie got a lot of running in this afternoon. She loves this field and loves her walks.

The best guess and that is all it is when it comes to Heidi's age, is that she will be 8 years old sometime this fall, maybe December. Since she was a runaway and not claimed at her local shelter, the basset rescue service did not have any of her birth records, or previous shot records when they picked her up from the shelter in June 2011.

She finds that walking on the path is much easier than the taller grass.

She looks quite a bit smaller than the bloodhounds but she is feisty enough to hold her own when one of them try to power by her. 99.9% of the time neither Sadie nor Stella will do anything to bother Heidi. I remember when I first brought Stella home, she wanted to get Heidi to play. Heidi wasn't interested and barked enough to let Stella know to back off.

So with a walk plus spending over an hour outside by herself today I think we can officially say it's Spring and we will be seeing a lot more of Heidi in future posts.

Another find day of retirement here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Heidi Takes 1st Walk Of 2017

With DirecTv's 3 days of temptation (free movie channels) trying to get me to upgrade my account to the movie channels, it was a late night last night and a delayed schedule this morning.

By the time we got up, it was warm outside (60°), hazy and a change in schedule. The first walk of the day would take place before I even started any thoughts on coffee. I asked Heidi "do you want to walk with us today" and she went trotting to the door!

For readers that may be new and not familiar with Heidi's skin story, do a search in the upper right box "Heidi's Skin" and that will bring up her history, diagnosis and treatments. What might look bad is actually very good for her. Even better than that fence behind her, which I'll high pressure wash this spring when it's hotter and the sunshine can dry it out faster.

At first I was not sure if she just wanted outside to walk around or if she was really going to take her first walk of the year. It wasn't her liking of 70° but it was 60° so I thought there might be a chance that she would join us.

Getting closer to making up her mind.

Then ... she gets on the path with her nose to the ground, ears dragging not far behind and she was off for the first time this year. Why is that exciting? I think her last walk in the field was sometime last summer, I'd have to look that up.

She jumped out into the lead while Sadie and Stella started their normal routine. It was good to see her exercise her nose and show some interest in the hound walk.

Stella was a little behind but had plenty of things to check out.

Sadie seemed happy that Heidi was out. I couldn't catch her with my camera but she would run back to Heidi on occasion to touch noses with her and then trot away from her getting in front.

I have been feeding her almost 2x as much kibble as the bag says for a 35# basset hound for quite a few months but she hasn't gained her weight back. It was just a few years ago where all four legs and paws were bare and raw. The vet told me not to expect any hair to grow back on her legs, paws or stomach. At that time her legs were mostly raw skin up to where the brown color starts.

As Heidi followed the path, Sadie and Stella explored the edge of the field and I could tell they were headed for the far right corner.

I've tried all the grain free food over the past two years. I have a huge photo file, dated where I can compare her skin condition photos with the same days a year or two in the past. Her skin irritation seems to be seasonal and only certain foods make her skin to flair up into bright red, itchy and raw.

She has done the best on the recent change to Rachel Ray Dog Food, dry kibble with grains. Her coat is soft and shiny and not greasy like some of the other grain free food would make it feel. The skin that is bare is not hard and sore but very soft, supple and close to a normal skin tone.

Heidi and I continued along the path while the two partners in crime checked out their far right corner. They heard nothing nor saw anything as their faces were buried in the thick brush.

This next picture is just after Sadie had sprinted over, and touched noses with Heidi.

While we made the final turn heading back home, Stella was still in the corner of the field. About the time I thought I might have to walk that direction to get her, she started trotting our direction after I called her name.

Heidi continued to enjoy her walk. The camera doesn't catch it but her tail was wagging from left to right as she had her nose to the ground. At times she would break into a trot but stayed on the path most of the way.

I had noticed this morning she had an eye that looked like she had a cold, with some mucus buildup. I'll keep track of that in case we need to make a trip to the vet for some antibiotics. She decided to clean out her left eye on her own with some nice dried cut hay.

Her nose is as good as Sadie's and a little better than Stella's I think, just by the way she acts and the rabbits she has flushed out of the tall hay in the summer in years past.

The basset hound is suppose to have the top half of their tail white, so they can be seen in tall grass during the times they hunt for rabbits. The long ears dragging the ground will kick up the scent, keeping it in front of their nose. For those that don't know, she had a history as an escape artist (a runner) leading to a lot of trips to the animal shelter. Guardian Angel Basset Rescue, rescued her from the shelter and put her up for adoption after a detailed vet inspection in June 2011.

It's really good to see her out in the field today enjoying the walk. She spends most of the winter under a sleeping back or blankets sleeping her days away. So many hours like that where at times I wonder if she is healthy or not.

With no positive birth date since she was a rescue, best estimates say she was 8-9 years old this past December.

Sadie walked next to me most of the way home, out of camera range. Not sure what that was for but Heidi led the walk home and Stella wasn't that far behind.

It was so nice this morning I almost pulled out the high pressure washer to clean the fence and the house but I want to do that in April when the days are warmer so things dry out faster. We will probably get a couple of more walks in today, but that might just be the bloodhounds and I.

Too nice to stay inside and not enough to do outside as far as tasks ... might sit outside and read while the hounds explore.

Is it really February 18 in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana with weather like this?