Stella Continues To Improve

With another late night (early morning hours) with MLB Playoff games, computer work and not being able to sleep ... once again our day started about 9am as I felt a wet bloodhound muzzle poking at my hand hanging over the side of the bed. It was Stella standing there letting me know she wanted her breakfast. Whenever Stella wants something or just stops by to say hi ... she pokes you with her nose.

So it was the normal routine that long time readers know ... coffee, internet reading update then the first hound walk of the day. Stella has been starting her walks lately with a nice snack of wet green grass at the edge of the field. Late afternoon yesterday as she and Sadie roamed the field while I walked around mashing down fresh mounds of grass developed by the mole traffic ... both hounds picked up a lot of these small burrs that are on every dead, dark brown weeds you see in my field pictures.

They even stick to my jeans sometimes as well as my fleece gloves when it gets colder. It's one of the hazards in the years they do not mow the field for the second time before winter. The hounds don't mind them but I am not a fan of pulling 3-7 of these out of each hound's coat after each of our 2-3 walk per day. No matter what, with perfect temps this morning at 61° we were off for the first walk of the day.

Stella was going to get all the freedom she wanted this morning but again she was more than happy to follow along with Sadie and I ... just as long as it was at her pace. When you see the excess skin slide down over her forehead she is in deep concentration trying to identify what her nose has picked up. No diet supplements today for either hound ... just straight pure scent tracking and identification.

It's good to see Stella back to her old self. She has not done the full-speed sprint she use to do but it's good enough just to see her have the ability to run faster than a trot. It's hard to think sometimes about how each hound is basically the same age at 8 and 9 years old. It's part of dog ownership but it's always hard to deal with old age issues when they happen.

With her ears flapping and going in directions that few breeds can match, it wasn't long before she ran by me with her non-intentional act of taking out my knee with a 'chop block' or 'clipping' that NFL players are penalized for. There is 7 acres of field around me and she has to run into me ... LOL

While the hounds headed west away from the woods and before the first turn ... I heard something running in the woods to the right of me, something big enough that was breaking tree limbs as they made their escape. Obviously the animal escaping had a better nose than the two hounds pictured below. Maybe they had programed their noses for only certain kinds of animals.

As I walked the normal path I noticed my jaw was not hurting this morning, just like Wednesday but I had the strangest feeling on my lower side of my lip ... on the right side ... same side as the pain on Tuesday. The lower right half of my lip felt like it was in the early stages of numbness after a dentist shooting you with a dose of Novocaine. How strange is that?

There was no need for me to march up into the far right corner of the field to get the hounds moving ... they were on a fairly fast pace along the back edge of the field. No deer in sight but they didn't know that. By the way they acted you would have thought their noses were only a few minutes behind the latest deer.

Sadie trotted though the taller grass.

You could tell she was on to something important and totally focused.

Same thing for Stella but she was gradually heading in a different direction as usual.

She trotted back to the larger path made by the ATV and I was almost certain she was going to try to escape right before my eyes. She hit that path, headed north and picked up her pace.

I had not said a word when she abruptly made a left turn on the path home and was joined by Sadie leading the sprint out in front of me, leaving me behind once again. The weather was so nice I wasn't running anywhere so I continued enjoying my walk.

The picture of this hound compared to last February or March is an amazing difference. No ribs are showing and her hip bones are not prominent, looking as if she was starving. The vet at the time thought she might be having problems processing the protein in her kibble and told me it would take a long time for her to regain the weight, if nothing else was wrong.

They were searching all the way up to the yard and Stella was going to get every last drop of her exploration this morning.

The only bright leaf colors I have seen are the trees right in my yard, just a few feet away from the property pole in the picture above.

I was going to wait to post this but with 21 images I thought I'd go ahead and post it now. I will be getting on the internet searching for a few things after this. I need to find out something about the lip numbness. Obviously somewhere a nerve is being touched on the right side of my face.

I need to search not only the internet but a Mac Forum for some issues a friend is having with her new iMac. She has things going on that I have never experienced before. Computers new or old are nice when they work but so frustrating when out of the blue they decide to ruin your day or night. I guess I am lucky since I have had very few problems with my computers since move from an Windows PC to Apple computer in October 2010.

With cool temps and bright sunshine, the yard I cut twice last week in two different directions on the same day ... is tall enough in spots to mow again. With me losing track of time with all the baseball and football games I watch, I did not know it was Thursday but could see it was the reason for the grass to be blowing in the wind after 6 days. The week has flown by.

I am headed for some self massage and heat treatment on my jaw by the way it feels. Nothing major, no pain but some tightness. I woke up in the middle of the night with the jaw bone hurting so who knows what was taking place while I was in a deep dream state with the strangest dreams I had in a while.

I had a friend tell me some things to do for my jaw. It was good to see that some of the things she (a PT) was suggesting I had done on my own on Tuesday night for no other reason than it relieved the pain I was feeling at the time.

Well I just felt a wet bloodhound nose nudge the back of my arm while I type this. Stella has obviously had a drink of water and now feels it's time for her lunch ... Sadie and Heidi are not hungry yet since both of them are sleeping a few minutes past noon.

I know it sounds like a broken record repeating myself ... but it's another beautiful day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Stella & Sadie Sprint Next Door

Like I said yesterday, there is never a dull moment with two bloodhounds. This morning for the first time ever, Stella ran down over the bank into the neighbors yard with Sadie showing her the way. I'll get to that story further down the post. It proved that they can hear and smell live moving things (people) a long way off.

With Heidi already moving into her winter hibernation mode she only comes outside after her lunch and then depending on the temperature, gets back inside as soon as possible. She has moved a Mexican blanket out from her spot in the bedroom to the living room and that's a sure sign that winter is just a few months away.

Starting time for the day started later than normal. We were up late with the last MLB playoff game plus an hour or two of computer work after that while I was still wide awake. When you are retired and the hounds being quite adaptable the daily schedule can be a floating one ... without dull meetings and a day of work it's pretty easy to do.

With the temps in the late morning only in the high 50's, it was still beautiful outside ... the air smelled clean, felt a little crisp but a great time to take our first walk of the day. The sky was the bluest of blue.

I was willing to let Stella do whatever she wanted to do on this walk. She lagged behind as Sadie was darting all over the field that was loaded with fresh new scents to track. It must have been a busy night in the field with deer traffic because Sadie was beside herself with excitement.

About the time I took this picture of Sadie ... Stella sprinted past me barely touching my right leg. It was surprising because from the last picture I took of her I didn't think she would be moving much in this walk.

I did catch Sadie in one of her sharp turns but missed getting all the other darting action of her.

I'm not a weather expert, nor a naturalist expert but I am guessing this fall will not be taken over by bright colors from the trees around here. What should be bright reds straight ahead are dying leaves. Yellows are nowhere to be found. There is still enough leaves and enough time to tell me I'm wrong so we will see.

I could tell by the actions of the hounds, scent tracking was the theme of the day and there were more scents to track than what they could manage. Sadie was running everywhere with Stella doing more of a steady paced search.

I had a feeling that Stella might try to duplicate her escape like yesterday so I kept an eye on her. She looked like she was sneaking away again but she stopped heading that direction when I yelled her name. She didn't turn our direction but stopped heading north.

Sadie had that look of hers when looking in Stella's direction that seems to say "where is she going now"????

Something was in the air as the hounds met on the path and took off running, leaving me way behind.

As I started heading back on the normal return path, both of them had noses to the ground at a good pace on the alternate path we take. It leads right to the north property line pole. So I moved over to that path with their suggestion.

This is where things get interesting. They NEVER are in front of me on this path. I normally have to walk back once I get into the yard and tug at Stella's collar to get her to move. Not today.

They started running .... that put my mind on the alert and I prepared the camera for possible running.

And then they started sprinting and never stopped. I had a pretty good idea what was leading them across the yard as fast as possible toward the bank by the burn pile. I started running because I was pretty sure they were headed next door to meet the neighbor for the first time ever.

Earlier I had seen the neighbor out clearing some brush in different parts of his yard and thought the hounds might have decided it was time to meet.

By the time I sprinted to the yard the hounds were out of site. I could see his truck parked near the bank, through the dead wild ragweed stems. By the time I got to the bank the hounds had ran over the bank through the weeds and had him surrounded --- blocking his way from getting out of his truck. They don't jump on people but are more than happy to let that person(s) know they are glad to see them.

Luckily he has a sense of humor. I called them to "get up here" and they both charged through the dead ragweed, up the bank and pranced around the driveway excited they had met someone new and proud of what they had done.

While we talked about the bank's future next spring I put the hounds in the house but not shutting them up in the bedroom like I usually do even when I mow the yard. That prevents Stella from eating my bowls of fruit, dragging my glasses, iPad mini or iPhone off of the counter to give them a good lick or snooping around for new stuff to taste.

So it was a test for the hounds since they had run of the house while the neighbor and I talked.

I am happy to say the glasses, iPad Mini, iPhone and my laptop were still on the counter and kitchen table when I returned. Nothing was on the floor from Stella dragging stuff off the counter and the only 'damage' was she ate one of my mangoes but left one in the bowl for me to eat later on.

Here are some photos from late yesterday afternoon. Sometime around 3pm my TMJ kicked in and drove me to my knees at one point ... not actually to my knees but you get the idea how bad the pain was. I tried 800mg of Ibuprofen ... nothing improved.

I tried rotating an ice pack and then a warm damp wash cloth on my jaw ... that didn't help. What caused it may have been a sandwich I ate mid-afternoon. With a recent dental exam giving me a clean bill of health I knew it wasn't a cavity that was causing the pain.

I lived with it until about 9pm when it finally got so bad that I stepped away from the baseball game I was watching on tv and headed for my computer. I had bookmarked two years ago a site that was about TMJ .. in fact it was tmj.org

I wanted to review what I was doing to see if I missed something. I found out that with constant pain I need to apply heat, not ice. I needed to take some more Ibuprofen (I didn't) ... so I soaked a wash cloth in hot water, squeezed out all the water and then put it in the Microwave for 15 seconds ... it was hot and felt great against my sore jaw.

As the pain diminished I massaged around my jaw bone, near my right ear, behind the ear and at the base of my neck ... a couple of hours later I noticed the pain had all gone away without taking more Ibuprofen.

The sad thing is, coffee (caffeine) is not good for TMJ. But I had to have a cup or two this morning and I thought what a good test it would be to find out if coffee would put me back in pain this morning.

I ate food on that side of my mouth to prove it was not cavity related. When I drank hot coffee before our morning hound walk I did not try to keep the coffee away from that side of my mouth. There was no pain of any kind when the hot coffee was on that side of my mouth.

It's been a couple of hours since I had that coffee and there is no pain at all in my jaw bone area or the teeth. I do sleep with a mouth guard to prevent me from grinding my teeth or clenching my jaw while I sleep. Sometimes I can feel how much I did that when I take out the guard in the morning. So the guard does work.

As I was typing this I heard two bloodhounds wrestling in the next room. It's been almost a year since Stella has wrestled with Sadie inside the house. The play ended with a yelp from Stella and I could see it's her hips or lower back that is the problem just like I have mentioned here before. She came running to my desk wagging her tail to let me know she was okay.

"No harm no foul" as the say in basketball. Sadie shared her water bowl with Stella and the both laid down beside my desk chair to take a nap and to let me know it was time for lunch even after a late breakfast.

No plans today except for more hound walks, more pictures and watching two baseball games this afternoon and tonight.

It's a beautiful day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.