The Hounds Get Their Food Supply Restocked

After seeing the change in Winston and Sadie's coat, no itching and a lot less shedding ... I bought another 33# bag of Fromm Senior & Reduced Activity (non affiliate link) dog food today. With traffic, a stop to refill the Mini Cooper S with fuel and the distance, it was almost two hours round trip. By the time I returned home the hounds were anxious to eat. Stella had made no attempts to escape the bedroom but I did see where she stood on her back legs to see out the windows.

When I made the switch to this Fromm food eighteen days ago, I was wanting to change the food of Winston and Sadie to a lower fat or what most companies call a "Senior" blend. Sadie needs to lose some weight and I thought feeling her this food instead of cutting her portions of the other food would work out better.

This summer, along with a lot of other bloodhound owners, there has been more shedding than normal. I just figured it was the extreme heat. Winston was shedding more than normal also and both hounds were itching more than they had previously. With half a bag gone I started noticing that Sadie was no longer sprinting outside at 10pm every night to eat grass. Neither hound was itching as much if at all and my vacuum was showing a lot less shedding was taking place.

Stella arrived a few days after I started this food. She had and still has a great coat, no shedding and made the immediate switch to the Fromm food from her previous food without any digestion issues.

This morning I was close to moving to the Earthborn Weight Management food since Heidi is having great results on their Meadow Prairie blend but when you are feeding around 80# of dog food a month, a difference of 5# in bag size makes a big difference. Fromm has a 33# bag, Earthborn's largest bag is 28#. I'll do a little more cost analysis later to find out which is the best deal. Both foods are great dog food. Both companies use USA ingredients and is produced at their own plants.

With a short trip outside this morning, my trip to Bloomington to buy food and a siesta for all of us this afternoon ... not a lot got done. Nor was anything planned but restocking their food supply. It was a successful day in the life of a retiree.

Sadie

Stella must like the Fromm food a lot with Duck being the #1 ingredient because she still is trying to "flip up" and open a locked lid on the dog food container. She finds it hard to understand her failed attempts, but she is persistent.

Stella

After downloading the photos after taking them this morning I noticed that Heidi's front paws hasn't looked this good since last December. Even her rear legs were not red and I still can see hair coming in thicker on places the vet said not to expect any hair to come back. She is on her 8th day where the food #1 ingredient is Lamb after switching it from Bison. Both blends worked well but I have to wonder if the change in the protein source is the cause for improvement. She has not had any Epsom Salt soaks in the tub this week.

If you remember or you can see past photos under the label on the right called "Heidi's Treatment", that part of her shoulder in back where the white hair is growing back was almost all raw skin and at times had the "elephant skin" look to it.

Also her legs and paws were red, inflamed and at times chewed raw. It might be just one of her better days but at least I will be able to tell what may make it flare back up.

Winston still continues to stretch his diet by eating that fine grade dirt from what the moles push up through the grass. I'm not sure what the attraction is but if he likes it that much, he's been doing it for weeks, I'm not going to stop him. In the photo below you can see some of the dirt residue under his nose.

The hounds played a little this morning when they first went out but nothing like Monday where they were doing all out sprints in the field. At 6 and 7 years old they may have over extended themselves in the aerobic department.

It was a pretty laid back day here in "the tropics" ... just the way we like them.

Stella

Sadie

Sadie

I think it shows that Stella is pretty happy with the fresh cut yard and some afternoon sunshine. I am still amazed how fast I was able to let her off leash (except on the walk) and how she recognizes her new name and will come when that name is called.

Also there have been plenty of chances for dogs fighting with the change in seating at times, or a bone that was never shared until now, including a water bowl of Sadie's that she would lay beside to guard against any basset hound infiltrations. They have their own water bowl in a different room because of Sadie. There have never been any fights over that water in the past 7 years and the past 17 days that Stella has been a resident here.

All seem to get along ... Heidi did bark at Stella this morning to let her know the couch was her's during the daylight hours.

For those that have been emailing the past few weeks asking about my travel plans, rving, the change in my blog, etc ... I am going to post answers to your emails in tomorrow's post along with some other thoughts. Photos of the hounds will also be included throughout the blog post although they might not be part of the subject matter.

This time of year is beautiful in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.

Yard Mowed And Tired Hounds

Yesterday's running, sprinting and playing wore the bloodhounds out yesterday. We went for the daily walk late in the afternoon but the usual excitement wasn't there. Winston who didn't play, was excited and barking when I was picking up the dog leashes and his collar. The bloodhounds though acted tired ... they walked tired ... and went straight to sleep after the walk through the field.

They slept through both Monday Night NFL games and I had to wake them up to go outside before going to bed for the night. So I was a little surprised this morning as they made an attempt to play again, although there was no sprinting, only in the backyard ... they hadn't recovered from playing hard and long on Monday.

After that first session outside, they came back inside and Stella has decided that she really likes the bone that Sadie has been chewing on for a couple of years. I note that amount of time because it is the only bone that she has not totally destroyed within a couple of hours of chewing, so I hope to find the same bone again sometime.

It turned into a pretty lazy day, we've done very little, except I did get the yard mowed and that includes those burnt leaves on the ground. Add in a little Chinese food buffet downtown before I mowed the yard, a siesta after mowing the yard and this day has turned out to be a pretty good day for retirement.

I usually let the hounds out right after they eat, sometime between 1-1:30pm, most of the time. Due to bloodhounds being susceptible to bloating, no running, playing or going for walks is allowed immediately after eating. They seemed to be still tired so as you can see there wasn't much activity after the meal.

After the yard was mowed the back was in the shade, there was a cool breeze from the SW and perfect to end the mowing job. Stella found the sun though and laid in the grass for a short nap. Winston was on the hot concrete again taking a sun nap and Sadie sat in front of me just to let all the dogs know that she was still in charge of the pack.

This is a pretty normal photo when I have either gone out to pick up the mail or they are enjoying the cool breeze from the south with new smells of interest or a noise that is peaked their curiosity. They will stand there together for a pretty long time as long as they are interested in something outside. Two pretty good watch dogs ... at least when they are not sleeping on the job.

I may have fixed my camera focusing issues, thanks to a blog reader that left a comment on yesterday's post. I did a firmware update and an update named Distortion Control Data. From what I have read before the update, the firmware update was basically to fix one issue with an LED light for the Memory Card. The other update I did just to be current with all the updates and hopes of it fixing my issue that is intermittent.

So far today the camera has worked perfect, with both lenses and before/after the update was installed.

Not much else has gone on here in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana. All is very quiet on the home front with four hounds sleeping most of the day.

They Sprinted Out The Door & The Day Was On

I uploaded all of the photos I took of their play session today to my flickr account. Let me know if this link does not work for you. All settings are public so you shouldn't need a flickr account to see the album ... Here is the link to all 58 photos: Bloodhound Play

The very first trip this morning in the dark was short, they were back inside after a quick trip. Once it was daybreak and there was sun shining into the house, Sadie was at my computer desk to let me know she was ready to go out, as well as Stella. This normally takes place with me getting up to get a 2nd cup of coffee but I had not started the coffee yet.

As soon as the door opened, the bloodhounds sprinted outside and were playing by the time they were outside the carport. Running, sprinting in the yard and field. It was amazing to see because Sadie had not had any activity like that in 7 years ... only the first few weeks she was here as a 12 week old puppy when Winston would play with her.

This is one of the things I was hoping to provide for Sadie when I brought Stella home. I wanted a hound that was her size that she could run with, to wrestle with. Winston has become to old to play much and Heidi has always stopped playing once Sadie joined her fun. Sadie was just too big for Heidi to play with.

I knew that Sadie needed someone besides me to be a dog with. There were too many times she would come to me and drop a bone or ball to let me know it was time for a game of fetch. Those games still go on inside and out with me and her but I can tell she enjoys having another bloodhound around.

What shocked me was Sadie rolling all over her back in the wet field, then getting up and sprinting after Stella through the field and yard. She had ran like that very few times in the seven years I've had her.

The play session ended with a slight collision, where Stella was running full speed and caught Sadie in the lip as she bumped her. Of course like any good bloodhound, she stopped to check Sadie out when she heard Sadie's yelp. You can see Sadie licking her nose which was the point of contact.

There have been no fights over Sadie's favorite bone but this has been the feature of the day when they have been inside the house whenever they are not sleeping. It's one of the bones that has lasted the longest and just today they were able to chew off one of the four tips. It's made of very hard rubber and has been indestructible for the past two years.

Once one of the hounds will get up to follow me, get water or just walk away from the bone, the other bloodhound will jump in and take that bone away immediately. There are 4 different bones sitting with photo view they could use but of course ... they want the same one.

Heidi has been outside a couple times and seems to have had a pretty energetic day. She started barking for food at 10:15am, that's 3 hours too early. She is currently sleeping with Sadie on their living room blanket. Winston thought he might join the bloodhounds playing this morning but figured out real quick they were too big and too strong for him ... he moved over to the warm concrete and sat in the sun for a while.

I missed some good photos because my Nikon D3200 would not focus automatically when I was trying to take a photo. It has been working intermittent recently, even with different lenses. I've tried turning the camera on and off, exchanging lenses, or taking a lens on and off ... sometimes it will work after that, sometimes not.

I'm not sure about my camera. About the time I think it's time to take it in for repair, it will start working flawlessly. With the recent repair work done earlier in the summer, this camera has turned into a big disappointment. I see from reading Nikon forums my issues seem to be the norm for the Nikon D3200. When it works, it's fantastic.

It's another beautiful day today here in "the tropics", with a lot of blue skies and sunshine. There are two more NFL games on the tv schedule tonight ... then a couple of nights off before we start the college this weekend. I may need a pre-game siesta to make it through both games tonight.

That's it for today ... enjoy the photos.

Some Photos Of The Daily Walk On Sunday

This is the second post of today. The post for earlier today is below this one. I decided to split the photos of the walk into it's own blog post, which is this one.

It was kind of between football games. The games that started at 1pm eastern time were close to being over or you could tell by the scores of some that you knew who the winner would be. I decided it was time to get outside and enjoy the weather with a nice hound walk.

I thought I'd take the iPhone and see what kind of photos I could get walking two hounds on retractable leashes and Sadie would walk leash free. Heidi is having a bad skin day today and didn't take the walk.






These first photos were right before the first group of games at 1pm. I think Winston could have stayed in that spot all day, after he finished a little exploring.

Here is Heidi from today a little after 12pm. Nothing changed in her food or treats, clean blanket and the house windows open to enjoy the cool breeze with the temperature at 70°. She will be getting an Epsom Salt soak and shampoo early Monday morning.

The rest are photos from our walk. Some of these have a weird angle but I was having to hold two retractable leashes with one hand and the iPhone in the other hand.

Winston Is In The Trailing Position

Stella On Leash - Sadie Running Free

Stella Hears A Tractor Starting

Starting The Return Trip Home

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