Kids and Puppies

My Bloodhound Family

This was a fun and easy video to create.

Deep in Scent.

And Lizzy makes three. Tail up, nose down. Always following the scent. What could possibly be wandering along the riverbank? The day was cold and bright. Not like it has been for a while. So if you are hot and looking for something cool, take a break from the hot summer and enjoy a little of Minnesota wintertime. The water was cold and clear, the snow freshly fallen, and in the sun, a little icy.

Is it any wonder?

Is it any wonder that when people see a bloodhound they see lazy? They see a dog always sleeping. This is not so. Ask any bloodhounder. But look again at the picture. There is not another breed that can look like they melted like so much butter into the landscape. Their body spreads out, and oozes into every crack, fills in every depression and even looks like they will pour off the table until they look like a Salvador Dali painting. And they snore. The jowls will flutter with every breath. They can make more noise than all Three Stooges at the same time. And why do they like perching on the picnic table? I think Clifford likes the picnic table because it is the highest point in the backyard. He can wake with a start, survey his surroundings with one sweep of his big head and go right back to sleep if he sees no cause for concern.

Lazy summer day.

Dogs have such a gift of living in the present. They take each moment as it comes to them. Every butterfly, every animal scent, and every strange noise gets their undivided attention if only for a moment. They savor every sight, smell and sound as if it was a gift to them alone. They use all of their senses to experience their new distraction. They sniff, they lick, they look and sometimes they roll in it. Once they have resurveyed their backyard - their world, they return to a comfortable place to relax having mastered their domain. The lazy summer day embraces them, the sun shining through the trees, cicadas hissing, in repose, they can’t be bothered but to look this way or that. A lean begins, the head begins to tilt and look away, the eyes close and the chest heaves a big lazy sigh, they fall fast asleep without a care in the world. We could learn something from our dogs. Time is too short to ignore the present. Savor the distraction, and give it our undivided attention. Is it urgent or is it truly important? Those closest to us, our significant others, our children, even our pets distract us from the urgent to test our interest in the important. We ignore them and we fail the test of distraction and they go away to try again another day. Days turn to weeks, then months and years and before we know it, our distractors are going off to college and we are taking our dying pets to the vet one last time and we wonder where did the time go and why didn’t we spend more time savoring the sights and smells and sounds that were the gifts to us for all those years.

What is your sleep number?

There is something about how our dogs sleep that we humans could learn from. No one has told them they have to lay a certain way with their head at the top of the bed and their feet at the bottom. They turn, they kick, they lay with their neck at an impossible angle. Their front feet go one way and their back feet another. They lay in the middle of the floor, in the doorway at the top of the stairs or with their chin over the back of the car seat. They sleep a lot, waiting, for us, to find time for them. They seem incredibly patient to me. Okay, they can’t wait for dinnertime, but they seem to learn to pace their expectations of us. When we assume a certain behavior, like sitting at the computer, they have learned that they can’t break through our concentration, so they take up places on the floor just behind the chair or under the desk or in the doorway just to be sure that you will notice them when you are finished. They know that if you have to step over them, you will notice them. And what satisfies them? A scratch behind the ear, a pat on the head, some doggie talk that sounds good them and really stupid to anyone else in earshot. “Are you my good girl? Yes you are. You are my good girl.” And it gets worse from there. You know what I mean. It makes sense to you. It makes sense to them. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.