Bloodhound Property Laws

I thought it might be a good time to change the medical tone of the blog today with some mid-day humor and a reminder for those that are considering a bloodhound as a pet ... plus new information about the breed for new and old readers alike.

The Bloodhound Property Laws

  1. If I like it, it's mine

  2. If it's in my mouth, it's mine

  3. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine

  4. If I can take it from you, it's mine

  5. If it looks like mine, it's mine

  6. If I saw it first, it's mine

  7. If you are playing with something and put it down, it's mine

  8. If I am chewing something up, all the pieces are mine

  9. If it's mine it must never be yours

10. If it was yours, get over it, it's mine

11. If it's broken, it's your fault, but it's still mine

Breaking Good News - Winston

Believe it or not, I do have a drainage system that runs the full length of the house and about 3' away from the house. Besides all the rain we have been having for the past few days, non-stop, I also have the underwater drainage from that 10 acre field behind my house that all ends up over on the south edge of the bank.

Consequently at times like these the drain system cannot keep up. I guess that is similar to Winston's bladder right now while he takes double doses of Prednisone the past 5 days.

Yet by 4:15 pm today we had our last down pour, the sun even popped out of the clouds for just a few seconds before they returned to the gray and ugly storm clouds we have been living with recently.

Overall though, Monday continued to be a pretty good day for Winston and the other hounds.


Let me break into this blog with some great news about Winston

He had been sleeping on his stomach since his accident December 19. I don't know what that accident was just that is the morning his back quit working and his legs collapsed. Anyway about 15 minutes ago, he wakes up ROLLS ON HIS LEFT SIDE and goes back to sleep. He has not been able to sit on his left or right sides, nor sleep anywhere but on his stomach .. photo below:

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I learned two new things in this journey with Winston today.

• Take him outside after every drink of water or waking up from nap - Don't wait for him to tell me
• Use the rolled t-shirt to pull up slightly as he is urinating, release for more urination to flow (help him)
• There just isn't a lot of ground clearance for him, if you know what I mean

I know those are not earth shattering ideas but they are two things I found out today and the second one I found out by mistake. It has worked out well for him.

Anyway it's been a very relaxing day for him. He got a lot of sleeping in which for him is good. He never whined nor cried in pain (no signs of pain for many days), Stella and Sadie were never excited and Heidi 'photo bombed' one of the photos of Winston. (excuse the dust)

Even with the dark and dreary skies, temps in the low 40's and some level of rain this afternoon at all times ... things never looked better since this is the tail end of all the storms. I have adjusted to the new routines and challenges, knowing nothing is promised in the future with Winston but he is giving it his best shot to get well.

Also today is the last day of double doses of Prednisone. That has to be good for him. Plus on a day like this, the coffee is tasting a little bit better so I had a 3rd and 4th cup for the day. 

Heidi seems to be looking better after the Epsom Salt soak on Saturday. Still for YEARS, she still chews and itches her skin ... maybe not as much but still does that and I have come to the conclusion she probably always will.

Stella and Sadie went outside after lunch at my urging. But with the light cold rain they were not enthused and probably a little upset that I even drug them outside in that kind of weather. As soon as they were back inside, Sadie jumped on the big chair and Stella stretched out on the couch and both were snoring within minutes.

Soon after returning from outside where Winston dumped both of his tanks, had some water ... he was feeling an afternoon nap might be good. In this photo he is almost on the last stage of lowering himself into the position to sleep on his stomach.

He heard the flash click open on the camera when I pressed the button and that turned out to be a pretty good shot of him looking good, even with his wet mustache. It might be just me but you really can't tell he is injured.

Here is our water system. The glass is for me, water only. I used the smaller bowl for him in hopes of keeping his ears out of the water as he drank. It does that most of the time but he has a tendency of drinking from the 2 o'clock position of the bowl and that gives him enough room to drop his left ear tip into the water ... it must taste better that way.

After the water and a change of some new warm blankets right out of the dryer Winston is in the afternoon sleep mode ... but not for long.

I knew when I glanced at him to see if he was still sleeping that this pose of him looking back at me ... he was getting reading to explore. I had seen it before. If he is elevated somewhere he will give me that look before he jumps but being on the floor at the time ... it just means he is getting ready to 'walk' somewhere without me knowing.

Stella thought she had him blocked but Winston scooted right around her, hips and legs dragging as his strong shoulders and two front legs had him moving faster than he should have been going. I caught him red-handed and he knows it.

I did give him one more chance of not leaving a free and open area - He took off again!!! So I had no choice but to roll the mini heater over, my box and the baby gate to barricade him in the blanketed area. He immediately started scoping out the area for an escape route and a plan.

He tried to make me feel guilty for putting him back in 'jail' but he was feeling so good today I knew he would take off again if he was not contained. He seemed to be wanting on the couch. With the deep soft leather cushions, it's hard for him to walk or move in his condition and probably not really good for his bad back, so I am not going to give in.

He finally gave up, called it quits and has been sleeping every since. As I write this that has been a little over an hour.

I don't have photos because both of my hands were holding each end of the taped rolled t-shirt at the time, but while we were walking around the backyard today I could swear he was trying to stand on his back legs. He was walking through the wet very saturated yard, I had his hips lifted with the t-shirt in hopes we were looking for a place to poop. That is the way he acted.

While I am looking at his tail, he right rear paw moved to the normal position. I reached down to place his left rear paw in the correct position  and lowered his hips a little bit to see if he could handle any weight. It was less than a minute, but fairly long, before he sat back down.

To me that is a great sign and we will work a little more on that as time goes on.

With cooler temps but dry weather tomorrow and sunshine soon after, things are looking up here in the tropics of Southern Indiana. Winston feels it ... he just needs to be loose to show me. 

Winston Having A Great Monday So Far

I decided Sunday while Winston slept in the afternoon that if I was going to be able to keep up with him not knowing how long this might take ... along with taking care of my other hounds ... then I was going to have to remain healthy. I was going to have to take time to buy good food like I had been but more importantly I was going to have to have good quality sleep.

Even with my reputation of being able to sleep anywhere with any amount of noise around, I need to sleep in bed instead of my floor next to him. So to do that I need to wake up Winston when I go to bed and move him to the bed I had made in the corner of my closet with the same square feet as the area he lays on in the living room. I'll have to gate that at night so he doesn't wander off, plus eliminate the chance of one of the bloodhounds accidentally stepping on him if they hear him moving.

Or, I would have to move him there earlier in the evening before he settled down to sleep. He doesn't want that from what I saw and heard a few days ago after sitting up the closet floor area. He likes being with everyone and he should be out with us even when he is sleeping. So, I woke him up last night and he was back to sleep about two minutes after I sat him down in the closet area. I was able to sleep solid until I heard him moving around at the new normal time of 3:06 am.

He waited while I put my jeans and shoes on. He waited until I went and opened the storm door. He waited until I put the taped rolled t-shirt under him ... and then, he went charging off wagging his tail, walking on his two front feet with me keeping his back legs off the ground ... barely able to keep up with his pace. Luckily for him and me, in this time of continuous rain, he as been going straight out into the gravel driveway and dumping his tanks pretty quickly.

So I sit here in the middle of the night, wide awake as he is back to sleep under my sleeping bag at the corner of the living room. Is it coffee time or do I go back and try to get some sleep? At 4:27 am, I am beginning  to think it's time to make coffee and start the day.

After 7:30 pm last night Winston started getting pretty feisty. He was starting to be his old self so to speak. When I say the word "walking", I mean until further notice, walking while dragging his back two legs unless I have the t-shirt under him to lift his hips.

Well last night after a good afternoon of sleep, and obviously feeling better, that he would start walking anywhere he wanted around the house. After the first attempt to move to the bloodhound's bowl of water I moved him back and gave him water. It wasn't 5 minutes later he took off toward the living room.

I moved him back to his blanketed area and explained to him the importance of keeping still. I put the barricades and the baby gate back up. I thought he was about to go back to sleep when I hear the baby gate being knocked over and he was trying to get out. Stella decided to come over and lay on the opposite side of him, with the wall and her on each side of Winston ... maybe she thought she could keep him from walking off.

I think Winston is feeling better.

Yesterday my Britta Filter Pitchers were on overdrive. Stella has decided to make it a "drinking game" and she is consuming water just as fast as Winston is, although in much larger quantities. Winston has his excuse of "but I'm on Prednisone" while Stella is just Stella. With that large consumption of water, Winston peed more than I could ever imagine yesterday. Sometimes it was 2-3 times in an hour, with him letting me know he needed to go out.

Toward the end of the day he just started peeing on his blankets with the 6mil plastic sheet between the blankets and the carpet. He had not done that since he was a 8 week old puppy. He seemed not only a little confused about it but he looked and acted embarrassed. He would try hiding it by licking the blankets dry. Here he attempted to hid around the corner from me.

A little embarrassed

Finally decides it's okay and lays on the clean dry blankets

After reassuring him it was okay, the wet blankets were pulled up and thrown into the wash machine and a new set of dry clean blankets were laid down. Today is his last day of Prednisone being given twice per day, so I am hoping as the doses decrease that his water consumption decreases also.

As a side note to this, I looked at the times on my spreadsheet for the times he peed and really they were about his normal frequency, except for just a couple of hours. Before he was hurt he always went to the door for me to let him out anytime after he woke up from his many naps. This time seemed like more since I have had to help him walk outside and then carry him back inside.

I saw a little reflexive motion last night as I rubbed and massaged his right rear hip. His rear leg flexed a little more than Sunday morning but not without help and not anywhere near a full range of motion. He will lay on his left rear leg when sitting and when he is sleeping. He never sleeps with his rear legs stretched out behind him. Although he will drag his legs like that in the yard when looking for his 'spot' to pee.

One more day of rain today. There will be colder temperatures but sunshine starting on Tuesday ... I'll take that over rainy days any day of the week.

The other dogs are holding up during all this chaos. Of course Winston is receiving the most attention but I am keeping the routines pretty much the same for the other hounds. They know something is up and not right with Winston, so they move fairly quiet around him but are curious about what is going on with him.

About the time I decided to fix coffee, a little after 7:30 am, I decided sleeping was better. I threw my sleeping bag down on the floor next to Winston and we slept until 10:15. I did catch him a few times kind of rolling on his left side next to me to sleep and not just sleeping on his stomach all the time. When I opened my eyes he was sitting straight and staring at me with the "I want water" look. After a trip outside where he wagged his tail while walking to the door, we were both back to sleep until 11:35am.

The next time was a little different when waking up. Stella had decided to take over nursing duties and was laying right next to Winston but across the bottom of my legs - I couldn't move until she did.

So to say the least, it's been a quiet morning of recovery for him. He has peed on schedule, all outside. He had a great breakfast with a couple of tablets of Prednisone added to his kibble and has had all the water he has wanted. He has been sleeping while I've been wondering around the house, outside with the bloodhounds and on the computer editing photos. Once he wakes up I'll take him outside then came back inside for lunch, although Stella has been begging to eat since I got up.

We have about other hour before the rains finally blow out of the area. Windchill is down to 30° but I'll take that instead of pouring rain. Sadie and Stella have not stayed out long and did nothing more than this photo. Heidi ran outside for a 'pit stop" but was back inside before I could turn and grab my camera. She has been joining Stella today in the fight to have lunch, their last meal of the day, to be served at earlier time. By that I mean she barks while Stella howls.

Sorry that this is all there is to blog about now, but currently it is the life with the hounds in the tropics of Southern Indiana.

Winston Is Following The Rules With Sadie's Help

One thing all this rain has done for me is find me a better spot to photograph the field/horizon across the highway. I don't always post them but I have been taking a photo of that field across the highway every day. Until today I had been standing in my driveway. Then I go to the corner of my house and shoot back across the field.

It's just interesting to see the daily weather changes after you put all of those photos in sequence. So with the rain I started taking the photo just beside the steps to go into the house. That turned out to be even a better angle, capturing what I wanted in that photograph.

Things seemed to change for the better after the mid-day meal was fed to all the hounds. I guess if they don't mind eating 5-1/2 hours after breakfast and then not again for 18 or 19 hours until the next morning ... I won't either. Stella did her daily begging for food at that time so I fed all of them.

Winston was excited enough that he decided he was going to scoot across the floor from his blanket to the location his food dish use to be when he was healthy. To keep Sadie or Stella from backing into him and stepping on him due to their excitement, I stretched the gate across the blanket area and fed him on the other side of that baby gate.

Normally he likes to go outside right after he eats. So we did that today. With the t-shirt under him, and his tail wagging, he walked really fast toward the yard and peed even with his hips elevate. I picked him up to carry him back inside and he fell asleep within 5 minutes ... as long as I covered him with the hound sleeping bag ... a cheap Coleman.

I also changed the 18/55 lens on the D3200 and attached the 55/200. I could then take photos of his blanket area without leaving my desk chair in another room. It wasn't that I didn't want to get up, but the other way the hounds would either stop what they were doing or Winston would wake up, stand up or whatever and ruin the shot.

So here is a sequence of Winston this afternoon. All the movement of the sleeping bag are made by Winston moving around.

Stella wanting to play with Heidi but she is barking at him - 'big deal' she says

Sadie moves in closer to watch over him

I hear a dog shaking, the sound of ears flapping. I look up and Winston has escaped the sleeping bag and has that look of needing some water. He drank a lot of water, I moved him back on the blanket and he was back to sleep within 10 minutes.

He is following the rules today -- LOTS of sleeping. He did get up a few hours later for some water, went outside and emptied his tanks. One thing I have noticed today, he knows when I am putting on the rolled towel under him that he is going to get to 'go' ... so he leaves before I can get the t-shirt in the proper position.

Water - Water - Water - I need Water!

Late in the afternoon, with a light rain that just never let up, Sadie and Stella were getting a little bit of 'cabin fever'. They finally decided they needed a little play and I made sure they didn't get near Winston's non-gated area. All worked out well - take a look.

I didn't see it happen but right after we finished going outside before it got dark, Sadie decided to slide around Winston and sneak in between Winston and the wall. It's almost 6:30pm and they are both now asleep.

It's been a long slow day here in the tropics of Southern Indiana ... but a quiet one.

A Quiet Sunday Morning For The Hounds

I guess blogging has become my relief. I have been blogging more than ever this past week. I don't have a desire to read, nor watch ballgames, movies and anything else. So these blog posts may continue to be more than once a day with photos.

Sometime around 11pm Saturday night I rolled out my Thermarest pad, sleeping bag, a pillow next to Winston's blanket area as I had done the past few nights. Every night he had been sleeping for hours by the time I felt like sleeping and I didn't want to wake him up but wanted to be able to hear when he woke up needing water or to go outside.

It was different though last night. Pad or no pad I could tell the floor had not been kind to my aching bones as I slowly laid down on the Thermarest Pad. The bluejeans rivets are not the best things to sleep on. Yet, I have to be able to go at a moments notice when I wake up in the middle of the night with Winston. About the time I caught myself complaining I just thought of Winston's situation ... case closed. I still loved the thought of sleeping in bed though as I dosed off on the floor.

Around 1:09am I had the wake up call. I never know what makes me wake up when I do. Winston never yells or cries in pain. I just wake up and he is sitting up staring at me. That means he wants 1 of 2 things or both ... water ... go outside. In the past week he has decided to lick his lips over and over ... I take that as "give me water ... a lot of water".

As soon as I came to my senses, I hear it raining so hard that it is pounding the roof. I clicked my phone for a time .. 1:09am. I remember how there was so much water the night before when he tried to go outside. I was tired, it was early and it was raining .. My thought process as I tried to wake up was ... I'll give him water but there was no way I was going outside just for him to stand there looking for a spot that he could not get to while it poured rain.

Field is just starting to flood, it will get worse pretty fast

I was hoping he would break his "house rules" of almost 12 years and pee inside. I was prepared for that and on weather days like this I hope he would. I had placed a sheet of 6mil plastic under his first blanket to protect my old and worn carpet. I have plenty of blankets to rotate clean ones when needed.

He wouldn't go.

Slipping the t-shirt under him, we head for the door that is still closed. He was walking and wagging his tail as we moved forward. I stopped him at the door, hurry to get the storm door propped up using the slider mechanism ... it is raining so hard I can barely see my fence only 32' away. As usual, when it's raining during his healthy days ... he heads right, around the parked Mini Cooper to the front area of mulch, under the overhang and pees. I don't know who was happier, me or him ... even at a little past 1am.

I decided I wanted to sleep in bed not on the floor when we came back inside. After packing 'his' sleeping bag, a small garbage bag to lay under the sleeping bag for 'just in case' on the bed ... I was asleep in less than 10 seconds after hitting the pillow.

When the hounds woke up around 7:09am, I felt great after almost 6 hours of solid sleep ... on a mattress. It was great! I'm good for another week.

Winston waited for me to get my shoes on, turn on the lights, let the hounds file out to the yard and help him down off the bed to start the walk to the yard. He made it all the way through the house, down two steps and out to the yard non-stop. Since he knew it wasn't raining, he made the left turn around the parked FJ and headed for the yard. He didn't take time to look for a spot ... he peed as soon as he felt grass.

Food, water and meds were fed and ingested without hesitation and then he packed it in for a morning nap under his sleeping bag. I can tell the Pedrisone is making him more thirsty and that leads to more peeing.

Sadie and Stella have picked up on the new routine. Everything is the same for them except the excitement and playtime after they eat. They use to do a little easy-going wrestling inside .. but some how they know something is wrong with Winston and if he is sleeping ... they are sleeping.

Eventually Stella will start chewing on her array of favorite bones ... Sadie will sit and look at Winston as the 'nurse in charge'. Heidi???  Normal routine for her ... sleep ... sleep ... sleep.

Sadie is really concerned ... sad, about the situation and has been since the start 

Winston seems to be in good spirits this morning but he is peeing more than he has the past week. I wonder if the Pedrisone has really kicked in. More thirsty is a side effect, which leads to more water drinking and it has to come out sometime. With another 24 hours of rain forecasted, I have brought out the Columbia hooded rain jacket and we will stand outside as long as Winston wants ... unless it's a downpour.

He does perk up when I ask him if he want's to go outside. You'll notice his right rear leg is straight out. It will not bend and I've noticed during my massages it has not bent in the past few days. It will flex at his ankle. Hard to tell with legs that short but its right above his paw.

At halfway through the day, Winston has been pretty restless this morning. He can't sleep. Sleeping bag on and off. Outside trips and then nothing. I wonder if the laser treatment has activated some bladder issues and restlessness.

As you can tell we've had a lot of rain in the past 18 hours.

With a lite dropping of rain, Winston snooped around for a spot and eventually peed quite a bit as I held his hips higher to give him enough clearance. Ground clearance is a tough objective if you are a basset hound.

Stella is timid around Winston, somewhat cautious and a little confused. She wants to touch noses with Winston but has a slight fear to be close to him. Sadie was in the searching mode but sprinted back to the house as soon as I picked up Winston to return inside.

At least it's still warm at 49° this morning. I think I would trade high 40's and rain for sunny and mid 30's here in the tropics of southern Indiana. That will be happening in a few days.

As I post this Winston has been sleeping soundly for the past hour.