Stella Cancels Morning Walk

From the signs of puddles in the carport and in the field across the highway, it rained pretty hard last night as the forecast said it would. I didn't hear a thing even with the windows open. Evidently Stella knew exactly how much it rain and just how wet the field would be because no matter how hard I tried to coax her into walking, she refused!!

It was still nice weather though. About 25° cooler than yesterday morning, a little more windy but there is an expectation of sunny skies later this afternoon. That will put the lawn back to mowing height for Saturday afternoon.

What I wouldn't do to be able to crawl inside the brain of a bloodhound to see what's in there, how it operates and how they think. It is one of the funniest breeds I've owned yet there has only been two breeds in 32 years of hounds. The basset hound and bloodhound is as far as I have ventured into the world of dogs.

I knew when I turned around to take this photo of Stella, there was a 'slight' chance she wasn't going anywhere.

When I saw this familiar look, I KNEW she was not going anywhere. Was the ground of the field really that wet? Standing water in spots along the path? How does she know?

I was even willing to let her lead the way, expecting her to turn left along the side of the house, veer up the small incline heading toward the north end of the yard and possibly walking on the 'return' path to start our walk. I would follow her along the way with no problem.

She did an about-face without any hesitation and headed for the door to go back inside. In fact she was so quick that by the time I turned the corner of the house trying to take a photo of her heading back to the door, she was already at the door waiting for me to open it.

So ... there will be no bloodhound walk on Friday morning. Maybe later, maybe not.

I started my day in a fog, it didn't feel like I slept that soundly. The hounds were not going to let me have more sleep, they wanted breakfast. I usually get between six to seven hours of sleep per night and close to half of that is sound sleep. Yet, that new bag of Seattle's Best Coffee (not Starbucks), smelled fantastic as I took a whiff inside the bag. It tasted even better and before I knew it, my brain activity rapidly increased.

I had the urge to drive the local area and look at some dog food, different from what I have been feeding the hounds since February 2017. If I were to go to the local farm supply store which has a wide range of dog food brands, grain-free and otherwise, I could also walk the aisles looking for something new to buy for lawn care or maintenance.  Maybe some winter vests or jackets would be on sale, which I don't really need.

Basically it's just a restlessness I get sometimes.

I like the dog food I have been feeding the hounds. It has limited ingredients and helped Heidi with her allergic reactions with raw chewed skin a few years ago. Stella is my new allergy puzzle though. It's never a fun puzzle to figure out either.

Could it be the dog food or those Glucosamine supplements I give her?

That's the million dollar question. If I don't give her the supplements, she has a hard time walking sometimes, well yelp on occasion and has a family history of bad hips based on what the previous owner told me. A vet a few years ago when looking at Heidi's skin issues told me his studies on dog food allergies resulted in finding out that dog food is not the major cause of allergies in dogs.

That makes the puzzle all the harder to solve.

An old friend of mine living in Phoenix has an older Mastiff that started having some severe issues with his skin. Luckily it took only one vet trip for him to find a solution. It was something I had never heard of during the long time I have had hounds. "Hypoallergenic Protein" was the key word and the key to solving the Mastiff's problem.

Dog foods that are good for allergies always try to stay away from chicken, beef, dairy and eggs. My ingredient lists of every dog food I used, listed on a spreadsheet showed that even the best limited ingredient, grain-free foods with a protein source other than chicken or beef .... ALWAYS has some sort of chicken (flavor or meal) lower down the list.

Maybe it's not chicken that is bothering Stella. There are no kinds of meat in the GlycoFlex Plus supplement. But there is some chicken flavor in her lamb meal and rice food.

The symptoms of an allergy can include skin rash, hives, itching, paw biting, obsessive licking and sometimes nausea or vomiting. She shows only those highlighted in bold print. Especially the paw biting and itching. I have scanned every inch of her looking for fleas ... I did not find any on her or me.

So I am very tempted to go the route that my friend took with his Mastiff because he saw a sudden change within 8-12 days after switching to a dog food with hypoallergenic protein. Basically that is food with lower protein, lower fat and more carbs. His vet still tells him to feed the food for two months as prescribed before they decide what food to move to.

Looking back through photos of blog posts of Stella in the past four years that she has been here (August 2015), there have been times she has stopped in the field to scratch. So then the question is .... environmental allergy? That is a major cause of dog allergies. We tried weekly shots with Heidi to combat environmental allergies with negative results in 2015. She only improved when I went to the limited ingredients dog food I use now.

A blog reader suggested last month that I splash a little yogurt on her food every meal. Just a teaspoon of it, recommenced by her vet and that showed results. A few containers of yogurt is a lot cheaper than a 20 pound bag of Hypoallergenic Protein dog food ... unless I started eating the yogurt.  :)

I admit I am not a fan of trying to solve dog allergies. My curiosity to try different foods will get the best of me. Plus I need to walk through the aisles of that farm supply store and tell myself no a million times when I ask if I really need this.  LOL

As long as the Cincinnati Reds continue to win, weather and dog allergies are not a factor in my day. Strange how sports can do that to you mental outlook. It's like I told that California State Patrolman in 1984, on a Sunday afternoon celebrating Cinco de Mayo cruising the coast highway back home to Carlsbad. I was driving my 1967 mint condition VW Bus, with the stereo blasting loud enough that I didn't hear his siren through downtown Encinitas. My friend saw him in the side mirror and said "Floyd, I think that guy behind you want to talk to you."  :)

As he arrested me he told me I was the happiest drunk he had ever arrested. I told him "my Reds are on a 7 game winning streak!!!!" ...

The winning streak ended THAT NIGHT.

Well I am off to look around at Orschein Farm Supply store .... maybe I'll buy a new lawn mower instead ... and some hypoallergenic dog food for Stella  :)

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

A Solution For Frustration

{Comments section is now available, fixed, not sure how that was closed}  This is one of the finer things of retirement. The freedom of time is something I value more than any of the money I made working. It will be five years this April when I walked out of the door and never looked back. I turned into a 'slacker' from a 'workaholic', possibly adding years to my life. I am on my own schedule, after the hounds approval of course and flexibility is the keyword in all of this. So .... some late night blogging.

We didn't know what to expect this afternoon as we enjoyed temperatures in the mid 40's well past noon. Heidi and Stella checked things out after their lunch, with a short minute trip to the mulch for Heidi and Stella wasn't moving. Once back inside I double checked my 'short' shopping list and decided to make a trip to buy groceries

We were suppose to get snow showers late in the afternoon or possibly rain. A few miles west of town it turned into a light rain. The hounds were fed so I thought the chances were pretty good that Stella would a nap while I was gone.

She will always be shut off in the bedroom with Heidi as her supervisor. That room has the least amount of my possessions that can be destroyed if Stella has one of her anxiety attacks. I can repaint or repair any damage she does to the room ... but room damage has not taken place in over two years.

With her recent escapes by opening the round door knob I continue to tie a tight cord from the doorknob to another on a closet door about 12' away and then just in case she does get that door open wide enough to chew that cord (happened early December) I put a baby gate up outside of the door.

Looking at that face how would you ever guess she is an expert in escaping from a closed room and cannot be trusted if I am gone for any length of time??   LOL

As the afternoon passed I didn't see any signs of snow. For one reason, the temperatures were not dropping enough for it to snow. There wasn't really any kind of wind and only light rain. That canceled the afternoon walk for Stella and I.

I had caught up watching my two shows the DVR taped on Sunday. Nothing on tv was an interest to me. Mahjong? No. ... It seemed like a perfect time for a siesta. It was not quite 5:30pm. A strange time for a normal siesta but like I said, when you are retired anything is possible. Time means nothing.

While the groceries were being moved from the car to the kitchen, Heidi not only relieved herself but explored the edge of the property to make sure all the rain and melting snow had not washed away our bank. (joke) That was about all the aerobic exercise she got today outside.

I admit I lost track of what day it was while I was driving to the store 12 miles away. It all started at a stop light downtown, where I couldn't tell if the normally bright orange 'open' light was on in the window of the Chinese restaurant. That activated the word buffet from my memory and I remembered the buffet is not served on Monday's. So what day was it?

A quick glance to my watch told me it was Monday, 45° and cloudy and my pulse rate was 62 bpm, even with a sheriff pulled along side of me in the right hand lane.  :)

Just because I have all this time on my hands, not working, no meetings to attend anymore, that does not mean the word frustration has been erased from my dictionary. It all started when a car pulled out in front of me as I had just made my left hand turn downtown. This town is loaded with old people and those old people always drive ultra slow, even through town.

I passed her in a legal passing zone just as I was leaving town with the speed limit 35 mph. ... Those same slow ass drivers were waiting for me up ahead and my 12 mile trip to the store seemed like a cross-country drive. It did not stop there ... oh no.

With the forecast that our location would be coming to an end within 48 hours with a winter storm from hell, everybody and their mother was at the Super Walmart Store, the best grocery store available within a 20 mile radius of my house.

Not only do they drive slow, they shop slow. They block aisles while stopping to talk. Some don't know if they are going left or right so they stay in the middle of the aisle, dazed and confused. I only needed a few things, like coffee, eggs, butter, chicken, veggies and fruit. It would have been quicker if I would have shopped and bought one thing from every aisle in the store ... it was that clogged with people and slower than slow.

I might think I am flexible being retired until I am in this situation ... then I'm claustrophobic. It's not that I have to get out of there because walls are closing in ... no ... I have to get out of here to get away from people who irritate the hell out of me.

I don't deal with stupidity well. Never have.

To top it off ... slow cashiers and backed up checkout lines was the icing on the cake. I finally excused myself to the lady behind me and the lady behind her, so they could back up and I could get out of line ... then go through the self checkout.

LOL ... NO !!!!!!

It didn't get better .... I have all my food checked out and sacked with no problem. But the machine would not read my debit card. Finally the lady that works that department when trouble arises came over but she couldn't get my card to work either. Something was wrong with the reader.

Luckily after she tried for the 4th time and was about ready to call someone ... it decided to work, while she did nothing different from the four previous attempts.

I was able to get out of the parking lot without anyone backing into me, pulling out in front of me, all those crazy things that can happen in parking lots. So that was a good thing. Did this mean I had a clear shot home? A short 12 mile drive at 60-65mph ???

Not today.

Oncoming traffic was spaced out just enough that even if I punched the accelerator I still would not have been able to slide in front of someone. Right before my eyes I saw my 12 mile trip was going to take longer than I did driving over. The 'lead' car would be an old beatup pickup truck with a Confederate liscense plate on the front ... how did I know I was screwed on the drive home??  LOL

So I kicked back, knew I was going to go slower than slow, five cars behind the leader (that truck) of the 45mph caravan. Sports talk AM radio saved the day.

It's always an encouraging sign as I pull into the driveway that Stella is not outside waiting for me to pull up the driveway. I know that sounds weird and surely impossible but it did happen right after I first got her in August 2015. She broke out of the house that day because I made the mistake of leaving my screened windows open, the bottom of that window she tore through was 4' off the ground. So the thought of that might happening is always there.

I glance inside the door window as I unlock the door and see the door, the baby gate and cord are all as I left it a couple of hours ago. That's a good thing to see. Some 'short' shopping trip that was. People panic when the news is blasting scare tactics on winter storms.

Don't they know they live in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana where you can count on it being much much better than the rest of the nation will get? We don't have a lot of bad weather anymore.

So I am home. I am happy, The hounds are happy and treated with their grain free bacon flavored dog bone. How could I celebrate surviving a couple of hours of frustration?

I fell off my food discipline while shopping. I anxiously took off the lid to a brand new container of Haagan Dazs Strawberry ice cream and started eating. Damn!!! did that taste good.

I'm blaming those 22grams of sugar for my late afternoon siesta ... yes ... I ate the whole container and then basically passed out a few hours later.

LOL

It turned out to be a successful day in 'the tropics' of  Southern Indiana.

Rainy Saturday Morning

With the weather forecast from a few days ago a 100% accurate this morning, I knew when I went to bed last night that the chances for the daily walks today were in jeopardy. I had water coming up over the soles of my boots on Friday when we took two walks through the field. So add a night of rain, signs of flooding in the field across the highway, the Saturday morning walk was postponed.

Stella did go outside in the dark this morning when I let her and Heidi out first thing in the morning. An hour later you could still see her paw prints after she came running to the door from the backyard or field.

So that meant to put some kind of a blog post together I was going to have to dig into my photo archives. With over 60,000 pictures in my Photos Library I figured I could surely find 20 some pictures for a post. Luckily I found two old folders that I had not looked in for a very long time.

They both came over in the transfer from Apple's iPhoto to Apple's Photos programs after they changed their formats for storing and editing pictures a few years ago. One folder was called "From MobileMe" and the other was "iPhoto Events". I found pictures all the way back to 2001.

The picture above is from June 2006. It looks like I had a much better lawn, with thick grass and the field was mostly filled with grass/hay instead of wild weeds.

As you can see the field has not changed that much in 20 years. If you look straight ahead you will see an additional Sycamore tree to the right of the larger Sycamore tree. In June 2008, "straight line" winds pulled the Sycamore tree on the right side, out of the ground like a weed ... falling through my fence and across my yard, parallel to the house, measuring over 100' tall.

The house was light gray with white trim with a crimson color front door. Hard to believe that 20 years have passed that fast. I don't know how that small caption in black letters in the upper left corner got there nor how to take it off.  LOL

I bought Max from GABR in 1998 or 1999, can't remember. He weighed 83 lbs when I got him and couldn't walk 30' to the field without sitting down to take a break. It did not take him long to find the "dog chair" and claim that as his favorite sleeping spot.

By taking away his daily portion of cottage cheese on top of Pedigree dog food (previous owners), then changing him to high grade kibble, along with the daily afternoon walk when I returned home from work ... he dropped 21 pounds and lived 12 years.

That stain on his tail is a burn stain. He was sleeping so close to the baseboard electric heater one winter day that he was burning his tail. He ever noticed it and I was able to rescue him after I was smelling a strong scent of burnt hair in the house. He growled at me when I tried to move him ... he never liked being woken up from a nap.  He did not realize his tail was burning!!! LOL

Bertha was my second bloodhound and was a very big girl. Back then I was probably feeding them the measured amount that was on the dog food package without adjusting the portion size. Or ... she might have just been a big girl. She was a great house dog and I can't remember her ever destroying anything as a puppy. I've looked through the few pictures I had of her at a young age and none of them show any kind of damage.

She looked a lot like Sadie and both were so similar in personality once Sadie was older. Yes, that is the back of the same field where Stella explores every morning.

In November 2002 Bertha was not real happy with me. I had been gone all day after an 8 hour round trip drive to pick up a new basset hound puppy. She sat there mad or maybe sad that another puppy had butted into her world. Thinking back to November 2002, Bertha and Max were the only two hounds I had at the time.

But how could I pass up not buying Arthur? He was Winston's "Uncle" born two years before Winston. They had the same exact mannerisms, personality except Arthur would wander off more than Winston ever did.

This gives you some idea just how small a basset hound puppy is at 8 weeks old, compared to that bone. Needless to say, Arthur arrived and took over the house. He drank out of Bertha's water bowl at the same time she did ... and would slide his mouth in to steal Bertha's kibble while she ate. He was extremely funny and a little cocky.

Bertha might have looked mad that fall day in November, but within the hour after Arthur arrived she decided that maybe the new puppy wasn't that bad after all. Max rarely played with her so I think Bertha was happy she had someone to be with.

Arthur loved to play with the big bloodhound ... they ran many laps around the living room coffee table and out to this area when they played. Bertha never used her full strength when wrestling with Arthur. She'd let Arthur bite and chew on her ears, and climb all over her.

After playing a lot, that led to a lot of sleeping until the next round.

Even as Arthur grew older and bigger, Bertha liked him even more.

On occasion Arthur would have to be the 'petsitter' to my niece's mini dachshund. I remember the day we went to pick up Kila as a 8 week old puppy, she wasn't much bigger than my hand.

In 2011 Heidi arrived on scene. That is her up in front and of course on a retractable leash because I was told by the foster mom she was a 'runner' that had to be on a leash at all times. Sadie was 3 years old and after her escape chasing deer the previous December, she was still being leashed on the daily walk, with a 25' retractable leash.

Winston never needed to be leashed even at 8 weeks old. He was just as laid back as a puppy as he was at 12 years old. He and Arthur had the same mother

Again the field was so much different from now. Different owners, although both were/are neighbors. In the first 10-12 years I lived here they would spread fertilizer on the field from the turkey farm you see in the pictures of the AT&T tower. The first time I came home from work, with every window in the house open ... to smell what was all over the field ... told me I had moved to a farming community.

So much different from living on Carlsbad Blvd, Carlsbad California across the street from the Pacific Ocean 20 years earlier.  :)

In June 2011 I was on a basset hound rescue webpage when I saw this picture of Heidi. She was named Lucy at the time. She ended up in rescue because she had been in and out of her local shelter many times, always running away from her home. I emailed them immediately and filled out the form for adoption.

Like I said before, they told me she had to be on a leash at all times, so even when she was in the backyard with Sadie and Winston, I'd have her tethered. Yet, she never showed any signs of running away from the yard nor on our walks. My basset hound Sadie out in Oak Harbor Washington was a 'true runner' and Heidi was showing no similar signs.

I still kept her on a leash the first week she was here. Then I tested her without a tether in the backyard and when we took walks. I had a leash in my hand just in case but not connected to her collar. She would walk next to Winston most of the time on the daily walks. 8+ years later, she has never been leashed since her first week here.

In the summer of 2013 I had plans to sell everything I owned, including the house, buy a Class A or Class C RV and travel with Winston, Sadie and Heidi. I cannot tell you how many times I pulled that sign out of the yard then put it back up a few days later. I would not retire until the next year.

People at work that drove by the house every day to and from work, use to joke with me asking me if I was trying a new method of selling the house. It would be up in the morning when they went to work and not there when they drove home.

I know the future is always hard to predict but based on the trip in June 2015 to Colorado and Utah with those same three hounds ... with their reaction after returning home after a week on the road ... selling this house would have been the worst decision I have ever made.

Sometime around 2002 I got back into the VW Bus scene. I found a website called The Samba that listed every model and every year of VW ever made. I was strictly into VW Buses older than 1967 ... with the year 1967 being the last year they had a 'split window' in the front.

This is a 1965 Standard bus that I bought in Wisconsin and drove it back home without any mechanical problems. It would end up being one of four VW's I would own within the next five years. Every parking space up here on 'the hill' was taken.

This picture was taken on Hwy 6 in Utah as I was heading to connect Hwy 50 in Colorado. I had just bought a 1963 VW Cargo Van in Salt Lake City, UT and was meeting a friend from Alamogordo that had bought my first 1967 VW Bus in 2002 ... I blew the engine on the bus that Dennis bought, on I-25 a few miles north of Truth or Consequences NM.

I've always loved driving through the western states with open skies and beautiful scenery. I've lived in Southern California and Whidbey Island Washington, so I've covered about every state out there making trips back to Indiana to visit family or when I moved back here in December 1994.

Photos always seem to bring back some great memories don't they?

I see where Al over at TheBayfieldBunch has been one of the first I have seen or heard about, that has been hit with the latest Google closures. For years Google has been saying they were going to close certain programs they had developed. Sometimes it would happen but then as if they were teasing us, they would supply an update and keep the programs they were going to close ... open.

I guess this time, they are serious and are doing just what they scheduled. It is not the reason I moved my main blog (not moved but started blogging) to WordPress this past December. Yet, I am glad I don't have my blog based on what Google does. Yes ... my old blog of 7 years is still there and will remain there because I don't think Google will every get rid of Blogger. There are millions of people who use Blogger for personal and business websites.

Besides ... Blogger is one form of income to Google. Advertising.

Whereas .... Live Writer and their Picasa Photo editing is expendable not only because there are options to use to replace those two programs, but Google doesn't make any money on Live Writer or Picasa. It COSTS THEM MONEY to run. Just like Google + which will be gone in a couple of months.

I hope Al finds usable options to do the same things that he is use to using putting his blog together and editing his great photos.

I consider myself to be fairly computer literate but I also found it to be quite an adjustment after moving to WordPress even though in 2005 I had over 100 one page WordPress blogs used as product pages for affiliate ecommerce.

Even when I changed from a Windows PC to an Apple Mac in October 2008 ... it took me a little over two weeks to understand the different language and processes where I could work with the Apple iMac. I love Apple products and will never go back to a PC or Microsoft program.

For those that don't know, with the Apple Photos program that comes free with every Apple device ... you can edit photos in that program with as much detail as Lightroom and other photo editors.

THERE WAS AN ADJUSTMENT AND A STEEP LEARNING CURVE MAKING THOSE CHANGES ... even for someone who is computer literate enough to be dangerous.  :)

Good Luck Al ...

Not much planned today except a basketball game at 2pm that I want to watch. It's already 10:27am and Heidi has still not woken up from her morning nap. Stella has figured out the walks are canceled for today. She does NOT know that all this rain is turning to snow after midnight.

I'll try to get some updated pictures this afternoon to post tonight. I moved the Favorite List and Archives back to the footer of the home page. Scroll to the bottom to see them.

It might be raining but at least it is warm this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

My First Two Tone Basset Hound

It was perfect weather in the middle of March 1998 to load up  Maggie, Harry and Max, along with our furniture to move into the house I still live in 21 years later. It was a smaller house than I had ever lived in but it was surrounded by land owned by a neighbor who didn't mind sharing it with the hounds. The field gave them some room to wander and exercise their noses and in exchange the hounds gave 'Smitty' something to laugh about. He would always stop if he saw us outside while driving by, just to talk to the hounds.

It didn't take long for Winston, Maggie and Max to settle in with the orangish/yellowish shag carpet that was popular in the mid 1970's, when the house was built. I didn't need them to convince me it needed to be replaced with some new carpet and I had the new carpet installed within the month after moving in.

It also didn't take them long to figure out the warmest place in the house was as close to that baseboard electric heater as possible. It might have been warm the day we moved in but there was still some winter left and they stayed warm together.

Maggie was my first two-tone basset hound. I can't remember if that was something rare with basset hounds in the 1990s but it was what I asked when I made that phone call to a number I found the newspaper classified section. I wasn't a good basset hound buyer back then. The internet had only been out a few years so not all basset hound breeders had their webpage yet. I never researched breeders and basically just looked in the "Pets for Sale" sections of the newspaper.

I noticed he kind of laughed when I asked "do you have any two tone basset hounds?" Once I arrived at his house, I saw what he meant by laughing. This seller was the true definition of a 'puppy mill'. There had to be close to 30 lemon/red and white basset hound puppies to choose from. I cannot remember how I chose her but I am guessing she gave me a basset hound look that I could not resist. Two days after bringing her home he called me telling me he had given me the wrong AKC paperwork and asked if I could come back to exchange what I had for the correct one. I had no idea which registration was the correct one. It didn't really matter to me since I was only wanting her as a pet.

Soon after moving in and Harry showing me his wandering skills were optimized living in the country, I would keep him tethered anytime he was outside. I put Maggie in charge of watching him since she never left the yard and showed no signs of stepping into the front yard. She was that good. Later I would let Harry out of jail and luckily the highway was never a factor with him.

It didn't take long for her to figure out her spot on the couch was the same here as it was in Bloomington, 25 miles away. She would never lay on the couch until she had moved the cushions into the perfect spot. She did have the energy and jumping ability to get up on the couch when she wanted, even with her extra weight.

She loved the snow as much as any hound that I have had. Of course with those short legs, the snow couldn't be too deep. There would be many times I'd have to go outside to bring her in otherwise she would have stayed out in the snow too long.

Not until years later when I had Winston, was I reminded how she use to love spending time outside on her own, never leaving the yard or the field in back. She was a lot like Winston in that regard, as she would stay outside for hours snooping around or sleeping in the hot sunshine. Yet she and Heidi are almost identical in temperament and personality. They both enjoy life.

As you can see not much has changed outside. That is the same yellow reflective plastic covering the cable that runs from the electrical power pole to the ground, that's there today. It has saved many a car or truck from backing into the cable.  The burn pile still stands just right of the utility pole. It's hard to say since these are scanned photographs, but I think that is Max standing with her. Max and Bertha are always hard to tell apart when looking at old photographs.

Sometime around 1998 or 1999, I found a website that is listed on my other blog and was listed here when I listed websites in the footer of the homepage. It was a Basset Hound Rescue ... from GABR I picked up another Max, which is the basset hound behind Maggie. Yes, too many hounds by then ... three bassets and a bloodhound. I have no idea why I couldn't stop buying more basset hounds ... was it all the land I had around me?

Years later after Bertha had grown tall enough to look out the living room window, a rabbit would stop by every summer night to visit Bertha and Maggie. It never failed to show up around 7:30pm. Once Maggie passed on, I never saw the rabbit again.

From the time she was a 8-week old puppy, she was always the perfect house dog. With the number of other puppies the seller had, all outside in separate kennels, I was sure she never had the required socialization her first 6 weeks. That didn't seem to matter as she was an old soul in a puppy body. She got along with all the hounds and really enjoyed following the bloodhound around, biting him/her on the back of his ankles, then running for the other end of the house or the yard, depending where they were.

She would always go to the door when she wanted or needed to go outside. Day or night, summer or winter, it didn't matter. Just like Heidi.

She approved of the new Berber carpet. She thought it was a big improvement over the 1975 'shag carpet' we got rid of.

You might notice some changes looking at this picture. She and Bertha loved to play, and run around the backyard, then into the field. My backyard was smaller then. Based on what I was told when I bought the house, the property line only went as far as what was mowed. All of that brush area belonged to the owner of the field ... it is now cleared and mowed, and what I mention on the blog as the "north backyard", is part of my property.

The gray pole was pulled out of the ground with my 1987 Toyota 4Runner. It was my Prime Star tv satellite system until 1999. DirecTv bought them and with the different coordinates for a signal, my DirecTv dish was installed in the front yard.

Maggie was borderline overweight. As with any puppy mill, the breeding isn't going to be the best. I really knew nothing about different breeders or classic features of the breed. To me, it didn't matter, she was a fantastic basset hound.

She use to roam the field for hours alone. I never had to go out to check on her, as she would always be at the door when she was ready to come inside. Unlike Sadie whom I use to let stay out on her own ... Maggie never ventured next door to see the neighbors, in either direction. She was a true 'homebody'

She had just turned 7 years old in the summer of 2002. Prior to that, she had zero health issues. She had the annual checkups, the annual shots along with eating kibble that was considered at the time to be one of the best dog foods. She did the daily walks on the same path that Stella and I took this morning ... but suddenly in June, something was wrong. She was starting to cough after finishing the daily afternoon walk. She also started taking breaks along the way, where she had always forced herself to the front of the other hounds to lead the walk.

I felt two large lumps on each side of her throat. You can see them in some of the pictures below. As my fingers checked out the rest of her coat, stomach, legs, behind her ears ... I found more of those lumps. They were right behind her rear legs and one on her stomach. She was also looking bloated.

A quick trip to the vet, the same place I took Sadie this past September, Heidi and Stella for their surgeries in October ... found the sad news. A very fast spreading cancer. I was told they would do all they could but not to expect more than two weeks. The news came from out of nowhere and surprised everyone that knew her. She always wanted to lead the walks, always making sure she was in first place. Her appetite was normal up until the last few days she was home.

She spent five days at the vet as the staff did more tests, more treatments. It was a shock since I had never had a hound get sick so quickly. My first basset hound Harry lived to be 13 years old and I just assumed they all would.

After her 5th day at the vet as we approached 4th of July weekend I told them I wanted to bring her home. I wasn't going to let her spend her last week in a vet kennel, with no one around. They knew she didn't have long live and thought it was fine that I pick her up. There was nothing else they could do for her. They said to watch her appetite as she was showing signs of not wanting to eat anything.

So Maggie, Max, Bertha and I hung out at home during the weekend where I would get the following Monday off from work for the holiday. It was one of those July weekends that was hotter than hot. In 2002 nobody was mentioning 'Global Warming', it was just a typical summer day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. I knew this would be her last weekend alive. I could see she was going downhill each day. At least she was able to spend it with the other other hounds and in a place she loved being at. It was a sad 4 days.

She would want to go outside, but only to sit and pant since it was so hot ... or was that panting a sign of pain? She showed no other signs of being in any kind of distress. She always came back to the door when she wanted inside. Only this time, every minute she was outside, I was too, keeping an eye on her

We didn't have blogs then as I was at least three years away from starting my first one. Therefore I didn't take the same number of pictures like I do now. I saw by the 'information' on these pictures I had used an Olympus digital camera but that was about all I remember. I don't remember the model number nor does it look like I had a lot of pictures on file. Yet, that 4th of July weekend in 2002, I couldn't stop taking pictures of Maggie. She kept posing and acted as if she knew this was our last hoorah. Needless to say, it was gut wrenching.

She wasn't eating much, slept a lot, but she still knew the best place in the house on a very hot July weekend was right on top of the floor register that was blowing out ice cold air conditioning.

What ended up being her last afternoon at home, turned into a photo shoot. She didn't want to go back inside. She would wander from the driveway to the yard, then back in the field ... then the yard. She was wandering but looked so sad and scared. She knew something wasn't right.

Bertha knew something was wrong. I had brought Bertha home as a 8-week old bloodhound puppy, when Maggie was 4 years old. Maggie instantly claimed Bertha as her puppy. She taught her how to go outside, where to sleep plus how to share food and water. They were best friends. Seeing this picture of the grass right up next to the house makes me wonder if that arrangement might be the best for erosion control. It looks so much different, I am not sure I could go back to that

Then ... without asking, or coaxing them ... they did just what Stella and Heidi did this past October. They posed for a picture together. I think they knew this was their way of saying goodbye.

Some say that dogs/hounds/animals will venture out by themselves into a field or woods when they are ready to die. This seemed to be the case with Maggie at the time. In fact one time I came back outside with some water for her and didn't see her anywhere in the yard, the driveway and not in the field. The hay/grass was too tall to see where she had gone.

Finally I saw where some grass had been mashed down a little and followed that. I found her laying down at the back edge of the field where it meets the bushes, straight back from the house. I didn't know if it was time or not. How do you ever know how long it will take for them to pass naturally? Almost an hour later I stood up from where I was sitting next to her ... she got up and followed me back to the yard for some more pictures.

She wouldn't stop posing for pictures and my small digital camera wouldn't stop taking pictures.

By the next afternoon she had deteriorated so much in the previous 24 hours, it was time. Over the 31 years I've had basset hounds or bloodhounds I have had to choose to put them down, not all, but more than I want to remember. When I took her to the vet that afternoon, she couldn't walk.

While waiting for the vet to finish his previous appointment, she laid spread out on the cold tile floor. It was interesting to see her wag her tail once the vet came out to see her. She new his voice. It was the only time I had ever put a hound down and saw the whole staff of vet technicians (4) in tears as they tried to print my bill. Everybody loved this basset hound.

After I downloaded this picture into my computer, a PC at the time, I could not remember ever taking a picture as good as this. She was speaking a million words with that look of hers. It affects me even now, 16+ years later, when I look at it. I don't remember how or who sent me an email soon after this but the email was an offer from a photography company to submit a picture that we thought was our best one or a favorite one. The subject didn't matter. It could be from a vacation, landscapes, cities, children or our pets.

I submitted this picture and then forgot about it, not really expecting anything ... about 6 months later a delivery slip was in my mailbox when I got home from work one day. Remember those? Letting me know what time and day I could pick up my package at the post office. It was a mid-size, hardback book named "Sharing the Past" from picture.com, edited by Dinah Elashvili. Russell Hall was the senior editor. It was published in 2006 by The International Library of Photography ...

There she was ... page 179.

Under the category of animals/pets but on the same page as a Texas sunset, a firetruck in action, a swan and two children.

There are a lot of times when I am feeding Heidi, talking to Heidi, or watching Heidi when she's outside, that I am reminded just how much Maggie and Heidi are alike. Almost identical in they way they act, move and look at me.

I have always planned on it, but scanning pictures has always been the hold up, for writing posts just like this about the hounds I have had the past 32 years. You might see them during the days the weather here is too bad to take our daily walks, or I don't have enough photos of the day, or I have writers block where the words are nowhere to be found. It will be then that I tell you about another one of my hounds.

Every single one of them were special in their own way and were great hounds to share life with. I keep telling myself and a few friends, that Heidi and Stella will be my last hounds but sometimes I don't see myself ever living without a basset hound, or a bloodhound or possibly a different breed that needs rescued from the shelter.

It's too bad there isn't a way to have a "Hounds Reunion" here in the backyard and the field. What a picture that would be.