Stella's A Lot More Active Today

I'm not sure what it is but with today being a little halfway over, all of us are on very low energy with siestas even before 1pm. Maybe it was all the activity yesterday on Sadie's birthday that caught up with us. It's going to be very hard to create any kind of suspense and drama in this post.

The first walk of the day started a little after 8am. Once again for the 3rd day in a row Stella stood on "Winston's Patio" and contemplated if she was going or not. I was pretty sure by the way she looked that she would stay behind this morning.

By following her new morning routine, she walked along the side of the house before turning up under the shade, where normally she has been finding her spot to pee ... but this morning she had to do more thinking about her plans for today.

By the time Sadie and I were almost on the first turn, I was pretty sure that Stella would stay behind and we would catch her on the way back over by the neighbor's woods.

It was quite a shock as I turned to do a final check on her before I made the first turn around the corner of the woods ... that I saw Stella not only coming toward us through the tall white flowers ... but she was trotting to catch up!!

The times between her trots seem like months and may only be weeks ... anyway it was good to see just how much energy she had this morning.

She ran as close as she could by my knee and kept on trotting to catch up with Sadie. I could already feel how hot the sun was today ... yet by 1:30pm the AC had not automatically turned on and the house was still cool from last night.

With a surprising rain last night around 1am, plus the normal heavy morning dew, the field was really wet ... I could see a lot of new worn paths from deer moving in the pre-dawn hours. The hounds reacted as if all the scents were brand new.

Stella tried a couple of times to sneak away and head north. Each time I yelled "over here" she would trot in our direction. I guess she is feeling better and is just trying to test me to see if I am paying attention.

Sadie is showing us just how wet the field was this morning. She doesn't care about that either ... she loves to walk and track scent.

For the 3rd time during the half mile walk, Stella trotted at a pretty good pace to catch us. Hopefully this is a sign that she is on her way back to being like her old self and more energized.

Another attempt getting caught veering toward the neighbor's woods, yet she came my direction when called.

Old wire fencing from the 1940s still hangs on three different fence posts but is now embedded in the trees. I mowed the whole yard yesterday an inch higher than the last time. Not all of it needed cut but at least it's all the same height and a lot greener.

Heidi was outside long enough after her lunch that I was able to take a couple of photos of her. She is almost getting fat now and that is quite a switch from the last two years.

I guess Stella is like most of us after a holiday meal ... too much food and it's siesta time. She loves sleeping in the sunshine even if she gets too hot soon afterward and wants to go back inside.

Heidi even found it nice enough outside to soak up some sun. Not scorching hot, low humidity, a little wind, no bugs or mosquitoes ... a perfect day.

Of course Sadie had things to do and places to go ... she never finds time to lay in the sun ... that is wasting her time.

Last might when I thought Spring had arrived early, I raked out the roots of wild bushes that had grown on the left side of the fence post and trees ... down that bank. I planted some grass seed, only to have it go back below freezing by the end of the week.

I planted more seed, only to see enough rain that I could see it running down the bank. I had doubts that any of that grass seed would grow. So I planted the last of the bag I had left and let nature take it's course. So far so good, except for the ridge there in the middle, where I either missed spreading seed or it was washed away.

A few years ago all of that was overgrown brush, ragweed, and small saplings ... now it's the best part of the yard.

With all the hounds deep in sleep and it's not even 2pm, I have doubts that much more will happen today. I am going to grab my book and head outside for some reading along with a tall glass of fresh ice tea. We will get another hound walk in later this afternoon.

Sometimes it's just too fast paced here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Sadie's 9 Years Old Today

Sadie is 9 years old today. Considering she came from a 'backyard breeder' from the local area that isn't bad. She has never been sick but has made a couple of vet trips to get stitches when her nose had led her to some kind of injury. To celebrate she will get a 3rd walk with just her and I. No cake but will get some extra treats and additional scoop of kibble for each meal.

Her puppy photos were destroyed by "user error" in 2008. I was having malware problems with my Windows PC and reformatted my hard drive thinking I had captured all of the hound photos during my backups the week before. They were gone ... so what you see in these first three photos are all I have of her. Based on the two rabies tags on her collar I can only assume she was two years old in these first three photos.

She was never one that liked sleeping on blankets or dog beds when she was a pup. By the time I got home from work she had scooted all of the blankets inside her large kennel to the corner and was sleeping on the bare black plastic kennel floor. At night she only liked this small Mexican blanket to sleep on.

As a puppy she was the most obnoxious and destructive puppy I had ever owned. I found out later her strong natural instincts to track scent led her to boredom quickly ... then she'd find anything to keep her busy. Even trying to chew her way out of a strong wired indoor kennel. Those large black ones you see in the pet stores could barely keep her in control while I was gone all day.

Winston did his best to train her to be a good house dog but it took almost 5-6 years before I could stop "puppy proofing" the house when she was around the house. Even if I was sitting at my desk, she would sneak off and find things to get into.

To this day she loves playing fetch. When cabin fever hits her during the winter months or rainy days, she will toss me a bone or a ball wherever I am sitting so she can fetch inside the house.

I also did not let her walk the field off leash until she was almost 7 years old. I had tried when she was younger but one snowy December day she took off after deer, flying as fast as she could into the large field behind the one we walk every day. I couldn't find her and it wasn't until 5-6 hours later that she showed up at the door wanting back inside. After that she was back on the leash for daily walks and the tether when roaming in the field on her own.

Once she is in this pose, she is unconscious of what is going on around her or what is being said. She is has only one thing on her mind and that is tracking.

Before buying the 25' retractable leash, I use to walk her on a 40' lead through the field while Winston and later Heidi walked leash free.

She was around 7 years old in this picture. Her gray hair on her muzzle is not quite showing up yet ... nor had Stella arrived. He best friend at that time was Winston.

It doesn't matter if it's 95° and humid or 7° and freezing, she always likes spending time outside. 

In August 2015 at the age of 7 Stella arrived on the scene and for the first time Sadie had someone just as big, just as strong and maybe a little faster than her. She had not had this much energy since she was a puppy. Winston and Heidi were not only much smaller but also older and past the age of any kind of playing or running with Sadie.

Not only did Stella get Sadie running and playing again like a puppy but taught her that it was okay to kickback and enjoy the outdoors without tracking scent 24/7 whenever she was outside. Sadie had a new friend that I have no doubts added years to her life.

At 8 years old the gray hair started showing up more under her eyes and around her black nose. That did not decrease the amount of food she wanted nor the number of walks she likes every day. After she had outgrown the last hole on her collar she went collarless, except for her annual trip to the vet of her checkup.

Anytime she is outside she always has to be doing something ... this is her 'stare' to tell me she would like to go on a walk. That stare happens more times during the day, than we take walks. If we do 3 walks in a day that is just shy of 1.5 miles.

Just a few days before her 9th birthday she is still tracking scent in the yard or field. Her newest hobby of 2017 is chasing swallows out in the field. They fly just low enough over the top of her that she thinks she can catch them.

She has turned into a great house hound. She no longer destroys my shoes, paperwork, books or cell phones. Her favorite hobby as a puppy was chewing off the plastic tip on shoestrings and only the tip ... and only one per shoe. Luckily she grew out of that.

She is already telling me it's time to eat lunch ... so I have to go.

Stella Didn't Want The Afternoon Walk

The day started out so bizarre a little after 5am, that I'll get to that later in the post. It ended a little 12 hours later with Stella not wanting to go on the afternoon walk as I was about a step away from the field and Sadie was hopping up and down with her "let's get going" energy.


We waited this morning for the storms to pass through before taking the first walk of the day. When it comes to getting  your shoes and legs soaked walking in the early morning field, it doesn't matter if it's from heavy morning dew or what the strong thunderstorms left ... it's still wet. Stella actually trotted from the carport to the field and then right past me. I'd never see her with that much early morning energy in quite a while.

These bright orange flowers will not last long. I expect as soon as the field dries out with the 4 straight days of sunshine we plan on getting, they will cut the field and start baling it by next weekend.

This afternoon was a different story for her though. Around 5pm Stella, Sadie and I headed outside for the final walk of the day. It had just rained but nothing was left on the weather radar that showed we were in danger of getting rained on. Stella got no further than the six red blocks at the corner of the house known as "Winston's Patio", where she stood and stared at Sadie and I like we were crazy.

These few pictures are all from this mornings walk.

I kept asking her "don't you want to go on a walk", she stood and stared as if to ask "can't you figure it out ...no". Finally when I asked her if she wanted to go back inside with Heidi, without any hesitation she turned and headed for the door.

She did not want to go on the walk.

She did something similar last week for an afternoon walk, but then after getting back inside she walked to the door wanting outside just as soon as she was inside ... then walked slower than she normally does.

I take each of these instances as signs that something is not good with her. Her days and nights are normal, no signs or sounds of pain ... but she would never turn down the chance to take a walk. Thinking back to past hounds I've had that ended up sick, turning down a walk was their sign they were sick.

I want to thank everyone for their comments and emails. I decided earlier today it didn't matter what those 4-5 people do, I don't care ... they'll be ignored.

Now for the story of the day that is too bizarre, especially when it's 5:02am after checking my watch while wondering what is going on with me.

I'm woken up with flashing lights moving around the top of my bedroom, with shades of red. LSD is not involved. It's the same type of lights I see at night when the local police or state police pull someone over on the highway in front of the house with their lights flashing.

I figured they had pulled over someone on their way to work so I decided to get up and look out the kitchen window to see where the cop was in relation to the house and what part of the highway they sat. This is the first problem of my day ...

There is no cop on the highway and there are no flashing lights ... but there is a huge light show outside with loud thunder just as the winds picked up and the severe thunderstorm we were warned about had started ... with a house full of open windows.

No need to stop reading yet, that isn't even the highlight of this story.

I return to bed and try to sleep for the next hour. So far my Garmin is telling me I've slept a little over 6 hours and zero of it has been deeper than a 'light' sleep plus I got up earlier and my total time of wandering around the house has been 23 minutes.

So I decided to start the day a little early. I get out of bed and make my morning coffee while all three hounds sleep through thunder and lightning. I can take advantage of 2 hours of internet data that is in that extra free 50Gb pot. It takes a lot of data to upload all of my photos from the previous day into Google Photo and Flickr, for online backups.

So to cut this thrilling story short, I'll get to the point. I have two cups of coffee (normal), take the hounds out for their morning walk (normal), then sat down about 9am to log in my meals into the app on my iPhone that is tracking what I eat with hopes of losing weight faster than I have been.

Bizarre #1 -- I go to "yesterday", enter the meals I didn't log in the night prior. When I go to what I think should be Saturday ... the app says it's June 17th ... which was on Friday. I even tried it a couple of different times just in case there was not a mistake with the synchronization between iPhone and watch.

Bizarre #2 -- I noticed the screen that breaks down my sleep from the previous night is on the wrong date ... it shows June 18. That can't be right I think to myself because it's the 19th and Sadie's birthday. I even go into the edit portion of the page and change my wake up time to 6:02am because the screen is showing 6:58am but I did that the day before.

After making the change I realize I was on yesterday's screen and it was right to begin with ... but why is it showing today as the 18th.

With the flashing lights to wake me up, the normal ration of caffeine and now this ... I am willing to let things go as is and forget about it. I am positive the Garmin and the iPhone did not finish it's synchronization correctly and it will fix itself later.

Then the the world came crashing down on me ... I couldn't believe it ... was I in the Twilight Zone?

As I sat down at the computer I glance up to the right hand corner where my computer says "Sun 9:38am" .... SUNDAY ????? Sunday???

You're right, for the short 3 hours I had been up I thought it was Monday morning, was sure of it, even though I thought the traffic pattern on the highway was a lot different than a normal work day.

Needless to say, I have spent today just a few steps off the pace. It's good that the hounds can't read a calendar.

To those I made famous yesterday ... blogging will continue here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.