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.

The Bad Side Of Blogging

This past week I had a feeling this blog is on it's last days, much like the bark from the Sycamore tree that has popped off and is blowing all over the yard and driveway. This has nothing to do with my desire to blog, write and take photographs. I will always do that and have this past week, only privately. There are 4-5 people that visit this blog that might end up being the reason I stop blogging publicly.

It comes with the territory when you expose some of your life and that of your hounds to the public, not only to those in the USA but other countries as well. It happens to other bloggers, and some on Facebook. The big difference is on Facebook they can be blocked and they have zero access.

You cannot block people on Blogger unless you know how to write code. Even then it's hard because the people you want to block can change their user names, make new accounts or their IP's change, to continue to visit the blog.

Granted it's only a very small group of readers out of all the visitors I get but it's an annoying group since I don't get nearly the amount of visits/readers I had in past years.

Three of these five I mention are who I consider ex-friends. Due to disagreements we no longer speak to each other. In some cases I have been able to install fairly easy blocks to where they cannot call me, text me or email me. One of those in particular has none of those blocks installed but she still visits the blog on a weekly basis, usually reading a couple of different sites that are listed on my sidebar.

I say to those 3 people that are reading ... if I could block you from this blog so you could not keep track of what I am doing, or how the hounds are ... I would. I'd prefer that you just leave.

I could name you by name, location, type of computer you are using, how long you stay and what pages or sites you are reading ... very tempting ... but I won't.

Yet when you start a blog and click the settings to where it is in the 'public' status you are inviting the world to come and see it, then read about your life or interests. For a blog author that considers themselves on the private side of the scale, a self-proclaimed loner, public blogging is hard to do at times. Exposure is never a good thing.

One option is to make this blog private, then send out invitations to those I keep in contact with by blog comments or emails and those that would send me a request for an invite. But 'they' have to have Google accounts set up and a few of these people that enjoy the blog don't have and won't sign up for Google accounts (Gmail).

That also adds a step to those that might accept the invites. Each time they would want to see the blog to either read or scroll through the pictures of the hounds would have to log in. I know if that were me I would not be staying around reading a blog that I had to log into every time.

The other option is what I have done the past week ... put all my photos and content on my private blog and keep it at that. No access to anyone. Yet I know how I feel when blogs I've read or followed for years have stopped or the authors have disappeared without any announcement. So I understand feelings of some of the readers in that case.

What is boring and mundane to me at times is still enjoyed by readers based on what they have told me. The pictures of the hounds in the same field, on the same path are all different to them. They like seeing what they are doing each day during different seasons and in all kinds of temperatures. Some like hearing what I am doing or seeing the fields change with the seasons.

Then those few that are no longer in contact with me can keep track of what I am doing, how the hounds are doing and if I still have a pulse ... even if I don't want them to.

Still there are a couple of people that do more than that. They don't just download pictures of the hounds enjoying their daily walks or laying in the backyard soaking up some sunshine. They download ONLY those pictures of Heidi's terrible looking skin that WAS raw and bare up until 2017 .... and now ONLY those pictures where Stella's ribs are showing and or hip bones are showing just how skinny she was these past 3 months.

It doesn't matter that she is gaining weight back and her rib cage is slowly disappearing ... the vet said it would take a long time for her to regain the weight she lost.

No, they keep coming back to download pictures of her looking skinny, that they may have missed the first time.

In today's world where there are people spending all their time on the internet looking for instances of animal abuse and then reporting it to someone ... owners, farmers, rescuers and even the Ringling Bros Circus are guilty until proven innocent. In some cases pets and animals have been taken away. It's the reason Ringling closed their circus.

So I admit, those two readers in particular concern me. Since they will read this I am sure they will be jumping up and down with joy knowing they have caused me some concerned and have been legitimized.

So that is where the hounds and I have been this week. I am not blogging this to ask for advice or any kind of help. I decided to be open about the 4-5 people I don't want visiting the blog and what my concerns were. I'll continue to think about what to do with the blog.

I am still not sure what do to about this blog. If I stop blogging here but leave it open, all the photos are still available for anyone to download. All but two of you that do download them, I have no problem with and you are invited to do so ... except the two that I mentioned.

Also when blogs are left open for years without activity, the Spammers take over even with restrictions set in the background.

Blogging is addicting not only to readers but those that write. So much so some people can shut their blogs down and even stop blogging, yet can't stay off the internet so they still spend time reading other blogs.

I only wish I could block the readers that I don't want around here.

Heidi has spent 99.9% of her time inside taking full advantage of the air conditioning that fights against the summer heat. It's not even that hot yet but more than hot enough for her. She did join us in the early evening the other day and did the complete half mile walk, leading the way at times.

Stella is slowly feeling and looking like she is gaining weight. She is stubborn as ever as tonight's pictures show. Her appetite has never been affected by whatever problem she has and thinks that anything I fix to eat for myself is also meant for her.

Sadie is still demanding 2-3 walks per day. She doesn't care if it's hot outside and doesn't care that it's mid-day ... all she wants is to walk. She turns 9 years old on Monday.

I've raised my mower blade back one level and it's ready to mow again as soon as the grass gets a little higher. The backyard grows faster than the front yard so I'll wait another week before I cut the front yard.

Once I decide what to do about this blog I will let you know, either way. I'll just not disappear.

Hounds Take It Easy Today

I almost caught Heidi laying in the backyard enjoying the sunshine right after her lunch but by the time I had the camera and in focus, she was sprinting for the door to go back inside. It was an afternoon where the AC was needed but pretty close to opening the windows instead because of the strong breezes cooling the day down.

Later around 7pm the bloodhounds and I wandered around the backyard, enjoying the shaded area on the north side under the mahogany trees with about 15° cooler and those strong breezes. While Stella was busy scratching, Sadie and I snuck (walked) off to the north side of the yard.

Stella evidently missed us moving that direction because once she walked over to where we were standing while she was scratching herself she became confused about where we were or had gone.

She even thinks Sadie and I have gone back inside and left her alone.

Once I start calling her name from the north side of the yard, she thinks I am calling her name from inside the kitchen door and starts walking that way. She has a great humorous personality.

She finally glanced up and saw where we were but continued to the door ... she had enough of the hot weather.

While wandering around my backyard I took some pictures of nothing in particular and views from different angles not used before.

It looks like a light dinner (salad & ice tea), and then watching the IndyCar race at the Texas Motor Speedway in a few minutes. That will keep me busy until the Reds game in Los Angeles that starts 10:10pm local time and after that another day of fast paced retirement will be logged into the books.

It's been a nice day today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.