When I was in high school I got the idea to save my money and buy a female bloodhound and breed her for extra money. I had no idea the $500 I spent on a little red blob in Chattanooga would be the best thing I ever bought in my life. I've always loved animals especially dogs and I figured this would be easy, not only did it turn into good money but I fell in love with the breed and found out that each dog has his own personality.
To give you a little background information, my first was Pookie. She lived for twelve years and there were very few days when she wasn't with me, especially after I got out of college. She went to work with us everyday, her favorite thing was riding in the truck. This past August she died from cancer, thankfully she didn't suffer long. We found out she had a large tumor in her stomach and within a week she died. I bred her for many years to our male, Hambone, they were inseparable and he went to work with us everyday just like she did. He was without a doubt mama and daddy's dog, he loved us all, but if it came down to going with me or daddy during the day almost every time it was daddy. He was older than her and died a few years before she did with cancer.
Then we have baby Hambone, the star of this story, I sold him to a family that lived in a subdivision in Bell Buckle. They had him for probably a year or little longer and he barked so much that their neighbors had to go on sleep medication, to put it lightly he terrorized the neighborhood by being a 130 lbs of playful puppy. It was just after his daddy had died from cancer and Pookie was very depressed, she mourned just like a person would. He had been her mate for many years and been the only dog I ever bred her to, they were together every day and night and had never been separated until his death. It had come to the point where baby Hambone's family had to give him up, he had to much energy and not enough room to run around in, so they offered him back to us. I thought it would be good for Pookie to have another dog around, especially one so playful to get her back to normal, and believe me it did.
There are so many stories I could tell about baby Hambone but this is probably the best, the dog loved kittens more than anything in the world. He would pick them up in his mouth and put them all in a pile, so he could bark at them. He rarely ever hurt one, and if he did he definitely didn't mean to. He was very careful and slow at first but, after a few times he had a system figured out where he could act quickly. We really had to get on to him about moving them around, because sometimes you'd come home and they'd be scattered out around the yard. I watched him one day pick one up, lay it down then lay down in front of it and just bark. I didn't like getting on to him to hard about it, because he truly loved them and anyone could tell. But can you imagine being a 2 lb kitten and having a 130 lb dog laying in front of you barking? As long as I live I will never forget the day I looked out the back door and Hambone had his back to me. I said, "Hambone", and he wouldn't look around which was really odd for him, so again I said, "Hambone". Very slowly he rolled his head around to look at me and all I could see was a little tail hanging out of his mouth. I said, "Hambone drop the kitten", this was fairly routine at this point so he knew what to do but just stood there. I came out the door and I said, "drop the kitten now Hambone!" He eased down on the ground and laid the kitten in between his big feet, and just dropped his head. Of course I felt bad so I petted him to let him know that he wasn't in trouble, he snatched the kitten back up and took off across the yard. This was a never ending battle till they were grown, but he had a much harder time picking up a grown cat that had a choice to whether he wanted to be carried around, so he was forced to wait till the new litter arrived.
I can pretty well fall in love with any animal in seconds. My soft heart has made me the proud owner of several pet lambs, goats, cats, dogs, an orphaned burro that we raised on the bottle, fish, cows, and a deer. But there is no doubt that our hound dogs, especially the bloodhounds, have had bigger than life personality's. People always ask what was your favorite pet, but I can't give an answer because each one has been different and I've loved them all in different ways. If I can help it I plan on never going a day through life without having a bloodhound by my side.
