The Hounds Knew It Was Thursday

They all knew but as we went through the hound 'ear cleaning' exercise they didn't let on that I had just posted the wrong day in my title yesterday.

It wasn't until I looked at my email later last night, telling me I was getting comments on the blog post. Cat M was the first to let me know that I might be a little confused. She was nice in telling me that I had the wrong day. She could have hammered me and let me know that the International Date Line is out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and not in Indiana. Don't they have schools where you live?

Greg and Bethers also chimed in, giving me a break. Would posting it was Friday on a Thursday be classified as a 'senior moment' or too much partying when I was younger? Luckily I did have all the times correct for my basketball marathon. I didn't miss any games and finally turned off the tv around 2am after my last game. Today and tonight looks to be the same schedule.

Consequently we all started the day a little later today. Sadie was sure that we were going for a walk BEFORE I had any coffee. She assumed wrong. She talked Stella into coming back to the house after their short post breakfast trip outside.

It was nice to glance up slightly to the right corner of my computer monitor and see it was Friday and not Saturday or Sunday. Pretty convenient when the day of the week is 12" or so away from your eyes where you can see. What a concept that is.

As we started this morning's walk in 45° and a cold breeze coming from the north, I thought for a few seconds that I would let the hounds roam as they wanted while I walked the path. The smell of something burning in the air changed that ... there is a burn pit between my two neighbors where they burn trash the old fashion way. I didn't want Sadie nor Stella to head that direction.

By the time I took this picture I was sure I had a mutiny on my hands. Both were pretty far behind me and chomping on natural protein, dead leaves, or whatever faster than I could scarf down candy. I just turned and headed up the path.

In an instant Sadie ran up along side of me. She must have started her sprint as I turned away from her. She will rarely if ever wander off like Stella does.

I assumed that Stella would head to the woods with her new freedom this morning. She kind of veered that directly slightly but then headed toward the camera. Is it scent or sight that directed her my direction?

She has such a relaxed expression most of the time, outside and inside, that it is very hard at times for me to tell if she is feeling well or is something wrong with her. She does not seem as energetic as she was last spring.

As I walked I kept laughing about my mistake yesterday in the blog post.

Stella was enjoying her walk, at least I think she was. Her tail was wagging slightly while walking behind me. She caught up with Sadie and they headed for the corner of the field. I walked over in that direction to make sure I could keep her in the general direction. I didn't want Stella going into her new area today.

Sadie didn't really stop, just ran with her nose to the ground. A quick check of the field border. Or she had picked up a scent that was strong enough to keep her in motion.

It must have been a strong scent for Sadie because she took off to the center of the field leaving Stella behind. I only had three pictures to capture Sadie's tracking but she was all over the place, going back and forth in different directions.

For the rest of the walk both hounds walked behind me, too close to take pictures. Stella stayed on the worn path in her slow motion type walk. There were still a few places they needed to check out a little closer. It was another beautiful morning today. March is flying by and the outside 'to list' will be started within weeks I think.

Finally they decided it was time to go inside, eat lunch and take afternoon naps. They will assume all of the food I cooked this morning will be for them. Since they are bloodhounds they naturally think everything belongs to them. You can review the "Bloodhound Laws" on my right sidebar.

Cajun food is the basketball games diet today. I have cooked enough that the food should last me two days and nights of games. I could eat Cajun food everyday and been satisfied.

I don't know how but those dishes I spoke of the other day were done and the vacuum worked fantastic. So I am caught up with all that domestic stuff, rested for another 12 hours of basketball and the games are already on four different channels.

March is one of my favorite months for sports, with college basketball conference tournaments and a few days later the NCAA tournament.

The hounds of course will be able to fit in an afternoon walk between games. They will have multiple short breaks outside to check out the weather, for me to get the mail and check on the new grass seed I planted a few weeks ago. Will it survive the colder temps?

I'll admit though it does NOT feel like a Friday today in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

The Hounds Enjoy Friday Morning

Again it was the normal routine this morning. Another beautiful day in March and questions on where winter went or if it even arrived this year in 'the tropics'.

It looks like the weather experts have shoved their predicted snow tomorrow completely off of the schedule and in exchange only a week of colder temps. I'll take it, the hounds will take it. I could tell though this morning was different for them.

Stella had found a new bathroom spot, Sadie slowly sniffed her way to the back next to the bushes for hers. Surprising to see both of them turn and run back to the house when they were finished. Coffee was waiting for me inside.

I wanted to get an early start on our morning walk today. It looks like my basketball tv marathon starts at noon local time and my last game I am interested in, UCLA, will not start until 11:35pm local time. I won't watch every game but there looks to be 4-5 games I will sit and watch from the couch.

Right after we started the walk both hounds had their noses to the ground and both were walking very very slow. It is their process of identifying new scent. Neither was interested ingesting what they found, just ID it and moved on. With their slow pace I was able to get more pictures of their faces instead of their butts.

They moved together, slowly one step at a time and at times would meet to compare information. They seemed to be working as a team today. Funny to watch them because I could tell they were really thinking about what they were finding and frowns on their foreheads were showing a lot of analysis taking place.

Sadie was about to sprint around the corner but stopped immediately to turn and look at me to see if it was okay. Once I told her to "go on", she and Stella took off. I moved in their direction tip toeing over the water that was still standing right by the corner.

As you can see the hay/grass is getting green pretty fast with all of the rain we got last Monday and Tuesday. There are spots in my yard that I could mow but they are just clumps of grass in different spots.

As they continued their investigation I moved up to the farthest point of the field looking NW. I wanted to take a picture of as much of the field as possible to show a better picture of the field itself.

What I call the 'back edge' of the field is off to the right of the picture and heads toward the woods. Straight ahead you can barely see our path (greener) that is across the picture and veering to the left.

Stella was finding a lot of good stuff. She almost decided to stay behind. I had to send Sadie back to get her with the command "go get Stella". She ran, poked her nose at Stella and sure enough, they both turned and trotted toward me.

They didn't wait for me as they sprinted past me and went along the back edge of the field. I could see signs of a lot of deer traffic and Sadie was pretty sure that they had made a right turn, ran through the brush and jumped the small wire fence into the corn field behind this field.

It's so nice out this morning neither one was ready to head back to the house. We took our time, no rush and the weather was great at not quite 50°.

Stella decided to walk even slower toward the end of her walk. She didn't stop anywhere this morning but it took her forever to get back to the house. One slow step at a time.

Sadie saw three birds up ahead and took off sprinting while I was photographing Stella. The birds didn't stay around long and Sadie's sprint ended up being pretty short. You can see how fast the brush is turning green. Spring is trying to get here.

This next picture is for Tom. We were discussing the house being at the bottom of this field and the effect of underground water, a post from the other day. Tom ... this is the point where all of the underground water from the field heads. It's just in front of the burn pile on the left.

To add to the formula of erosion, 70 some years ago there was a road that went down into the woods going in front of that post. it went from the driveway out to the country road just a little south of me.

That road connected to my driveway and was a way for my dad's family to get their farm equipment up into the field I walk every day. For years the previous owners of the house would have to refill this area with dump trucks full of dirt or stone because it would wash out over the winter.

I stopped most of it when I found someone that could deliver something called 'mine dust'. It blocked a lot of the water, stayed firm and you could still grow grass over the top of it.

On my Wordpress blog I have found someone that has a Basset Hound and a Pyrenees. Her Pyrenees had skin issues similar to Heidi's. They found the food that worked was Rachael Ray's Only 6. They also found eliminating grain free food that had pea starch in it helped. They also added a probiotic supplement and coconut oil to her food two times per week.

I have tried the probiotic supplement for over a year. A lot of the grain free food Heidi was eating had pea starch in it. I tried the coconut oil on her food but was adding it every day a couple of years ago. I have not tried the "Only 6" dog food. I am going to try that with Heidi and see if that is the magic solution. They said their Pyrenees skin problems saw results with the food change in a weeks time after they had spent time just like I did, trying to find what was the cause.

I thought of moving my blog posting back to 6-7 pm instead of the middle of the day. I know as the weather gets warmer I will not be around a computer in the middle of the day to put a post together.

The problem is I like adding a lot of pictures to each post and if I waited to make just on long blog post, I'd have over 40 pictures on that post. I usually take over a 100 per day and choose which ones after I edit them. I like to keep the pictures in a fairly close sequence and I find it hard to pass on enough of them to get it down to 10 pictures or so.

Like college football season, the hounds will get their afternoon walks and short breaks to relieve themselves during halftimes of all these basketball games I am going to watch. We also go outside or take a walk between games. They will always be the priority over any ballgame.

It doesn't look like I'll be able to squeeze in a Z4 ride today. I noticed some nice dried bloodhound drool from Stella on the rear corner of the car this morning as I walked by. Stella evidently had been checking out for any possible way for her to get inside the car and go for a ride.

Another week has passed here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Heidi's Afternoon

It was just after her lunch that she moved out into the backyard. That's been rare in the last 12 months. I was picking up the sticks that blew into the yard a few days ago. Sadie and Stella were in the field. It was good to see Heidi outside enjoying the 60° weather.

For new readers that are not familiar with her skin issues, in the fall of 2014 her skin condition worsened and the steroid shots were no longer working. You can search "Heidi's Skin Treatment" in the search box and read all about it. Her skin is ugly but it is soft and supple, something that was not the case at times these past two years.

Different vets have told me that hair will never grow back where you see that slightly red skin on her legs and stomach. Without hair it just magnifies all the folds and loose skin that basset hounds have but hair covers. It looks worse than it is.

She feels like she has gained some of her weight back, when I lift her. I'll find out for sure during her next vet visit for an annual check up. Past blood work tests have proved to be normal, nothing going on inside that is bad.

I think this vet visit I am going to ask the vet to give treatment as if she or he is seeing Heidi for the first time and not basing treatment on her past 6 years. Any suggestions?

She seems happy, she wags her tail a lot even though I find it hard to catch it in motion with my camera.

Sadie stands by just to make sure everything is going okay. She knows it's rare when Heidi spends any amount of time outside. Plus Sadie is the 'supervisor' of all things here in 'the tropics'.

I took the hounds back inside because I wanted to load up the Countryman with both trash containers. One would be my bagged trash with anything not recyclable. The other container would hold those recyclables.

At the county recycling center, nothing needs to be sorted. That makes it much easier for me and I've been recycling on a regular basis for almost two years now. When I had to sort it before I rarely made regular trips to the center.

Based on my measurements of the height and width of this particular trash can, I was pretty sure that two of these trash cans would fit in the back of the Mini Cooper Countryman with room to spare.

When I returned all the hounds came outside. Even Heidi started for the door without me asking her if she wanted to. She must have remembered how nice it was earlier. Sadie and Stella had to supervise me taking the two cans out of the car. I had to hose out and rinse the one holding the bagged trash.

By the way Heidi was acting I thought the chances were good that she might go one the walk today. Sadie and Stella had already moved to the field while I ran back inside to grab the leash and my camera.

With the ground still soft and slight wet in spots I wondered if Heidi was really going to walk. She has never liked getting her feet wet when outside. That is one reason she hides under the roof overhang when it's raining and she has to pee ... it's dry.

So this afternoon it did not surprise me to see her step to the side of the muddy spot on the path. As she tip toed around it and out into the thick grass I was pretty sure she was about to 'cancel' her walk.

She didn't go to far but her nose and tail were working non stop. By this time Stella has ran way out in front of me and was headed for the woods behind the neighbors house. She must have known I was busy with Heidi and she tried to escape.

Sadie was somewhat confused. She stood halfway between Stella and Heidi not knowing which direction to go. She kept glancing at Heidi and then back in Stella's direction. She is the leader of the 'group' and doesn't like leaving anyone behind on the walk.

Heidi was sniffing around when I had to take off after Stella or she would be long gone. As I looked back at Heidi I knew the walk for the bloodhounds would have to be canceled until later this afternoon. I had to catch Stella and bring her back first before returning to Heidi.

I wasn't going to leave Heidi behind.

How can you leave a face like that??

Once she saw that I had Stella under control and trotting back in her direction, without hesitation Heidi turned and went trotting toward the house wagging her tail all the way. The door opened and she sprinted for the living room and jumped up on the couch for her siesta in the afternoon sun.

It wasn't long after they all went back inside when they were sleeping like they normally do every mid-afternoon. The house gets so quiet while they sleep that I am not sure I could ever live without a hound, at least one.

After all of this activity there was still time for another walk with just Sadie and Stella. I was also able to take a nice drive in the Z4. It's been a great day today, now if I can just get those dishes finished before I start my college basketball marathon tonight that will last for the next three weeks or so.

Snow is coming this Saturday in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.