A New Week Brings New Ideas

It’s beautiful here this morning. The temperatures have dropped into the high 40’s but it feels good outside with just a jacket. The hounds and I kind of took the day off yesterday after posting about Stella’s separation anxiety. That post brought a lot of ideas and thoughts in my email inbox. A few good ideas in the comments here. Even one very long phone call that started with Stella and ended up with Heidi as the topic.



I just realized looking at the title of this blog post — It’s NOT Monday!!! It’s Wednesday!!!  LOL

Doesn’t matter, I still have some new ideas floating through my always active brain cells. There is nothing major with those ideas, nothing life changing. Just a lot of thoughts that get through my filters that cause me to pause and really think about them.

Last night I spent watching not only my IU team shock their fans with the basketball game in Ann Arbor MI, but also watched another game after that one. That 2nd game didn’t start until after 11pm local time.

Trying to decide where I start today … different subjects are going to be covered in this post, I can tell that already … from Stella, Heidi, to blogging, and even WordPress vs Blogger. I might end up throwing a few other one liners in the mix also.

 I’ll start with not online blogging .. but the negative side of blogging.

When you decided to leave yourself open to all kinds of opinions from people you have never met and probably never will in most cases … there comes to a point in time where you ask yourself is it really worth blogging publicly? Can a blogger get the same satisfaction and reap the benefits of writing, in a ‘private’ journal?

In a strange way, I think of blogging at times as if I am standing down by the busy US highway in front of my house, passing out a book with descriptions and photographs of my life to every passing car and truck … Very very few of them do I personally know. That's the way blogging seems to me at times. Strange??

Over the past couple of months, my email inbox seems to be seeing an increase in emails from the anonymous readers to the experts in all areas of life. They like to let me know exactly what I should or shouldn’t do in my life … from the hounds to retirement living. They have all the answers and don’t hesitate in voicing them.

I even caused a “storm” just by moving MY blog to a different platform and then a few days later to a different server.

I’ve never been one that puts up with a lot of crap and I usually discard it as useless and move on. At times I feel the same way about blogging. I’ve followed my own ideas, my own path from a very young age and will continue to do so, always. Let’s just say that when I get tired of putting up with the negative side of blogging … is when I think of going into settings and clicking that box for “private”.

That’s where I am now.

By nature I have always been a private person. I even debated with myself in 2011 just what and how much I would write about. Like anything else, blogs change over time, following a different direction as it sees as the correct path.

Today, I am not sure which direction that path is going to be but I am fed up with some aspects of blogging.

 Now onto a lighter subject but heavily discussed.

A lot of good ideas about Stella. Some of them are going to be strongly thought about and tried, others have already been trashed. It is interesting to wonder what is her ‘trigger’ point? A question came up yesterday … is it really separation anxiety or does Stella just have a case of being claustrophobic?

I had never thought of it that way.

I do know when I did a test with her in my very small bathroom yesterday and the door closed with the light on … she was howling like never before. She was very upset and very happy when I opened the door. Yet when I did the same test with her in the bedroom, a place she always stays when I am gone, with Sadie beside her … she was perfectly quiet. I even walked outside to listen for any barking or howling. There was none.

Yes, Stella is left with every bone and every Kong ball possible, filled with either peanut butter, cream cheese or a dry dog treat … hopefully to keep her from becoming bored. You have to remember though, there is another bloodhound in that same room following the Bloodhound Property Laws and thinks those same bones, Kong balls and food are just as much her’s as Stella’s.

I don’t know who wins but when I return home, all of those scattered bones and balls are all in one neat pile … as if one of them were protecting “their” stuff.

After 30 minutes, I glanced in the window from the outside of the house … she was sleeping next to Sadie. Whereas Monday night she was digging her way out of that same room within a 12 minute period.

There will be more reading today, more tests and a few ideas readers suggested will be bought and tried. I will continue to leave her alone in that room with Sadie and slowly build up the amount of time I am gone … to see if we can get back to where she was before November 22, 2015.

 Heidi is a different situation. Four different vets have not been able to figure out what is going on with her in the past 16 months. Different dog foods have been tried from grain free to kibble with rice and barley. I basically can say that everything has been tried except canned dog food, raw dog food and Purina Dog Chow.

Based on dated photos, and a daily record on an Excel spreadsheet … it is not a seasonal issue with her skin, here in the country. A few readers plus some local friends agree that it is something physical, and possibly emotional.

On the negative side of blogging that I spoke of earlier … one particular email received recently accused me of abusing Heidi. I think one of her comments were “she is nothing but skin and bones and that proves to me she is being abused’. Those are the people I would LOVE to meet face to face.

It is also when I really wonder if blogging is worth it.

Once the weather gets warmer, I am going to try some things with Heidi and see if I can get her back to her old self. As far as the food, it will stay the same. Also, no medication will be used just like I have done since May 2015. She is going into the vet this week to get her thyroid checked, as that is something I have not tried and was suggested at the vet office.

She is happy though. She is back to sprinting around the living room when she comes back inside after her first trip of the day outside. She has even added some afternoon sprinting … but only if it’s sunny.

 Now … onto the subject of WordPress vs Blogger.

It’s already been almost 3 weeks since I moved from Blogger to WordPress. That included a week where I moved from the ‘free’ side of WordPress to the side where I needed my own host for the blog. That host will have to be paid monthly or I could pay a year in advance … low-cost really for all that it does.

I read all the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of each blog platform before making the move. After 3 weeks I have come up with some of my own. I still am undecided.

I like working with WordPress. I like all the different themes I could and can choose from. I didn’t like the fact that I didn’t have the options to change EVERYTHING that I wanted on the free themes, unless I paid for the WordPress Premium Package. The templates in Blogger are plain, old-looking but even being free, I could change everything with my own design … without being a computer geek that can write code or change the css.

The dashboard is similar to each. I haven’t found anything plus or minus with either Blogger or WordPress. With choosing a paid website host there is more work to maintain the blog, with adding plugins to not only get your site work but also protect your site from being hacked. Being a website on your own server has more chance of being hacked into rather than a free blog on either platform but on their servers.

I do know that both of my blogs, like all of yours, are constantly being “attacked” looking for the unlocked door so they can get in.

I must admit that even though I like all the ‘themes’ to choose from in WordPress, I still like my old blog design on Blogger. Each has their own features that I like, as well as don’t like.

I mentioned a few weeks ago and some readers agreed with me, that the photos were much sharper and clearer on WordPress vs Blogger. They also enlarged to the original size on WordPress.

That was until I moved from the ‘free side’ of WordPress to the side of my own domain and server, using the WordPress platform. I then noticed my photos didn’t enlarge as big as they did on the free side. Also, the quality was no longer that sharp, clear look that WordPress showed before. They are right now the same quality as Blogger.

In the Photo Library or the “Media Library” as WordPress calls it … I like the way the most recent photos uploaded are on top. What I don’t like is they import the photos out of order. That is hard to work with when you want a certain order when posting the photos on the blog post.

On the Blogger side, I don’t like that all the recent photos are moved to the bottom of the screen. In some cases that is a lot of photos to scroll through to get to the ones you want to post. Blogger does post the photos in the order you chose them and they also upload the photos in order that you export them. That is something that I really like and put as a priority.

Currently I am not sure I will stay with paying for a self hosted server. I am not even sure I will stay with WordPress. Because of that indecision, yesterday afternoon before I started watching basketball on tv, I moved my Blogger blog to ‘private’ status, then I started and completed late last night, copying and pasting all 33 new posts from WordPress to my old blog. That also included uploading all the required photographs.

Crazy?

Maybe not. I found that there was a converter needed even after exporting your WordPress blog file and before importing that same .xml file into Blogger. That converter was no longer available and many websites that had that converter were no longer in existence. One forum tech rep, suggested copying and pasting all the posts you wanted to move IF you had the time. I have nothing but time.

It was faster to do than I thought it would be to finish and I even fit a little over 3 hours of watching college basketball games last night, before I finished the job.

IF I decide to move again, there will be nothing announced nor anything that YOU have to do … I’ll just redirect that new .net domain to the servers on Blogger. You will click your bookmark or favorite and the old blog will show up … updated with all the WordPress posts.

But then again … I might change the template design on that old blog also.

After all, “A new week brings new ideas” … even if it is Wednesday (hump day) !!

That’s all I have to say today, from the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

Stella's Bad Side

How can a great bloodhound have issues? If you were to see her at the house or outside you would never suspect she has severe separation anxiety. Since having basset hounds since 1987, some rescued from shelters others bought from breeders … Stella’s separation anxiety is the worst I have ever seen in a hound.

I was told before I decided to pick her up, that she had issues. The previous owner and I thought with me being around all the time, in addition to having another bloodhound to stay with … she would improve. That improvement was true from Aug 30-Nov 22. Up until then, any damage was very minor if any took place. It didn’t happen all the time.

Up until November 22, I was never gone longer than 2 hours. I guess I became over-confident with her performance, so on November 22 I thought nothing of taking a trip to see an old friend about 1.5 hours away. I was planning being back home by 4pm … I didn’t make it back until 7:30pm. I had also left early that morning, around 7am.

She wasn’t alone .. Sadie, Winston and Heidi were with her. She had food, water, every bone in the inventory and a couple Kong toys filled with peanut butter … all to keep her busy.

It was a SHOCK what I saw as I opened the door. That is putting it mildly.

It was THE worst damage I had ever seen by a hound in the 29 years that I have had them. Her strength was on exhibit, the word severe would be a compliment … no I will not post the photos I took.

Since that night on November 22 – I started over from scratch in her “training”. Just like the first day I had her, I leave her with Sadie in my now, pretty bare bedroom. Why that room … no electronics to destroy, no refrigerator door to open … and no doors to open.

From the best that I can figure out … she doesn’t freak out if I am outside for an hour. I have even quietly walked up to the window to see what she is doing … laying next to Sadie sleeping. I have stood outside next to the room to see what I hear … no sounds, no howling.

So the ‘trigger’ must be when she hears my FJ driving down the gravel driveway. When I have started my FJ or Mini Cooper and left it running but never leaving … no damage.

Until last night I thought it was “time related” … that I needed to be gone for an hour before she started destroying things.

Last night I was gone for 10-15 minutes to pick up a pizza I had ordered.

I even rolled the bed out to the center of the room on the hardwood floor, so she didn’t have to drag it out with her jaws attached to the end of my bed … that has been her most recent act.

I even leave the closet sliding doors open so she doesn’t have to push them off the track to get inside. There is NOTHING left that she can destroy … she did all of that November 22.

So I return within 12 minutes … TWELVE MINUTES … and there are signs of destruction.

Months ago I had moved a heavy chest of drawers in front of a small wall that is between the bedroom door and my closet doors. She had been digging on the wood trim by the door handle, since she could not open the ’round’ door handle but she can open ‘lever’ door handles. I decided to protect that wall.

Within 12 minutes, she had slid that heavy chest of drawers away from the door handle … ready for this???????

She started digging at the drywall, door handle high.

Very, very, very disappointed … and confused.

So I will be digging deep throughout the internet for books, articles or even possible books here at my local library … on canine Separation Anxiety … and hopefully find some sort of answers. I guess I have my answer why I am her 4th home in her short 6 years of life.

I can’t say that I am happy this morning in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

Stella Continues To Do Well Unleashed

My thanks go out to blog readers, Bethers and Cat … they let me know after my first post this morning that all of my photos were not showing up on the pages I had transferred from the first WordPress blog. I think most of the problem is not the older blog posts but the pages in the red banner.

As I write this … those problems should be fixed since I spent most of the afternoon rebuilding the photo file here on WordPress by adding the photos directly from my hard drive. That of course gives the photos a new and updated file name when I updated the pages with those new photos.

We still had time for the afternoon daily hound walk. It may have been close to 60° but it felt a “cold” 60°, if that is possible in the ‘tropics’ on the first day of February.

While the 152 photos were uploading into the “media library”, I WOKE UP two bloodhounds, grabbed the camera and we took off for a walk. For some reason Heidi is boycotting all walks outside until the outside temperature reaches 70° … that should be a couple of months from now.

It was a strange walk.

Sadie spent the majority of time walking right beside me and Stella edged her boundaries out a little further by ignoring me more and more. At one time I thought it might be time to put her back on a leash. I didn’t carry it, so she was saved today.

She did come when I called her name eventually.

They had a slow start. They were waiting on me and I was waiting on them to move forward to start taking photos. Maybe the are starting to protest in their own way.

They finally moved down the brush/tree line together but it is not long before Stella falls way behind and goes into her first stage of ignoring me calling her name. She didn’t look happy as she ran toward me.

As they turned the corner … Sadie for some reason came back to my side walking slowly, too close for any photos with the 55-200mm lens. Stella headed for her favorite spot to the right … but today I decided not to let her go that way and called her … she veered left and followed the brush/tree line.

Her and Sadie decided they would team up on the ‘ignore game’.

As we made the turn to return home, they were back to waiting on me. Ten acres of field to walk in and Stella has to walk in front of me … slower than slow … her normal pace. She always walks in slow motion dragging her paws if she is not playing or running. When I would stop to let them walk ahead … they would stop.  LOL

Like I said … it was a strange walk today for the hounds. At least the sun was out and a LOT warmer than normal for February 1 here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.

It's Monday & It's Quiet

The hounds and I have been off to what feels like a slow start this morning, but things are getting done. I can’t believe it’s almost noon as I write this. I finally got a few ‘bugs’ worked out with the Firefox browser. It’s always been my browser of choice. A few years ago I started using a 3rd party password management program called LastPass. It will encrypt all the passwords that you use on the internet.

For the longest time Firefox and LastPass didn’t work well together … so I moved go Google Chrome.

I can say after a few days of switching to Firefox and with the LastPass ‘bugs’ worked out, I am really happy with the results. I have it set Firefox up to synchronize with my Firefox on my laptop … everything is working out great.

Before I ramble any further here are photos from this morning. I do know that photos of all the hounds are more interesting than my rambling.

After their normal morning activity … Stella ran full speed into Sadie wanting to play. I wasn’t able to catch the initial contact because I was picking up sticks in the yard but I heard the collision. I still find it strange that when they are outside, Sadie is always the one being ‘attacked’ on the bottom of the pile but it is reversed when they play inside.

Then just like that … in a split second … they stop and act like they haven’t done anything rough.

 
Soon after Sadie found a good stick to chew on while Stella roamed the field, to exercise her nose.

Stella was almost outside ‘her boundary’ but when I called her name, she came flying back into the yard. I can’t really describe that last photo besides just excess bloodhound skin in action.

I’ve spent most of my morning doing some online research, making lists, checking some of my spreadsheets … I have plans developing and that is always dangerous, in a joking way. For some reason the internet seems slow today. I’ve had some weird stuff going on with my older desktop computer whereas I can do the same task on my newer (less than 1 yr old) laptop without any issues.

The common fix seems to be digging deep into my operating system files, deleting a file called “cert8.db”, then rebooting the browser. That fixes the issues with error pages when loading a site.

Another thing this morning I am getting notices via the WordPress plugin I have that detects broken links in my blog. A lot of those are URLs for the photos I transferred inside the posts when I transferred from my free blog on WordPress just this past week. The photos worked before, some of them still work today and some will not load.

Is that happening on your computer when you load my blog or look at one of the pages listed inside the red banner at the top? Let me know if you are not seeing all the photos loading either in an older post or one of the pages listed inside the red banner.

I have also been very happy with my move not only to WordPress but also using DreamHost as my blog host. It’s a little more work than having a blog on the ‘free’ side of WordPress or Blogger but they make it very very easy to set up and manage.

For 16 years I’ve been buying the majority of my domains from GoDaddy but found DreamHost from a blog reader. The domains are a few dollars cheaper than what I paid at GoDaddy. Loading the WordPress blog was a 1-click installation. Their customer service is fast when answering questions via email and very knowledgeable if you choose to chat with a representative.

I had my new blog up and running in less than an hour. Most of that time was me customizing my template (theme).

Be sure to check out their hosting program, besides just buying a domain.

Well I am finished at 12:21pm typing this and no word from Stella yet that she would like to have lunch. I guess the playing outside made her and Sadie wore out because they are both sleeping right now.

A Very Lazy Sunday

It was overcast but the weather was great here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana. Nothing happened today and I mean it when I say that. The highlight of the day was the Chinese Buffet for lunch and then a long siesta that lasted the afternoon.

As you can tell, the hounds didn’t do much more but did skip the Chinese food.

Early this morning … Heidi is you know where.

A few hours later and it wasn’t much different. Stella enjoys the breeze from the South

I was barely able to get this next photo last night … just in time

It was counted as another successful day of retirement here in the ‘tropics’ of Southern Indiana.