As of a few weeks ago we have a new house hound! Meet Brazos Valley Tuffy!

The sweetest hound face!

Tuffy hunted with the pack for one full season and part of a second, but his disposition is not suited for hunting with the pack so we got the privilege of providing him a retirement home. We have had him long enough to get to know his personality and he is a bit of a lone ranger. We have 7 other dogs and while he’s fine with them, he seems indifferent to the pack, which is likely why hunting with the hound pack just wasn’t his thing.

He went off property at one of the hunts this season so I got to go pick him up in my car.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s most definitely a hunter! He will spend hours in our pastures patrolling the perimeter and I’m pretty sure he’s run off a few coyotes and definitely some owls and stray cats. He has an amazing voice!

Tuffy in his Rambo blanket.

He’s still at his “fighting” weight so when it is colder than 45F he has to wear his Rambo blanket outside in an effort to save his energy for putting on weight rather than keeping warm. He’s gotten to where he seems to like his blanket and will put his head through it to help get it on. It also means he gets to go outside, which he loves.

Finally using the dog beds

At first we had to barricade the dog door so he wouldn’t run outside and stay outside all the time. It was quite cold for a few days and he would go stand in the backyard and shiver because he was too timid to stay in the house. Often the younger foxhounds have a harder time adjusting to house life than do their older retiree counterparts and this has been true for Tuffy. And Tuffy does NOT like the TV. If the TV is on there is no chance he will stay in the house, so we are avoiding having it on altogether. The only other hound we have right now is Catfish and they were never in the kennel together so Tuffy didn’t know to follow Catfish’s lead on being a lazy house hound.

Hound snuggles.

However it appears that they are bonding pretty quickly. We lost Peaches shortly before Christmas and Catfish stayed with her almost 24/7 for the last 3 or 4 days, so it was nice to see him snuggling with Tuffy recently. Catfish wanted nothing more in his life than to always share a dog bed with Peaches, but she just wasn’t having it and would bite at and growl at him. Catfish is also blind so he runs into things often, which also often results in getting barked, growled and bit at by the other dogs. Tuffy doesn’t seem to mind any of this about Catfish and for the past three nights they have shared a dog bed. I know the photo looks like Catfish is a bedhog, but Tuffy just doesn’t know how to share it yet!

It has been cathartic to have a young hound in the house after losing Peaches. She had a good long life and was very well loved!

Our sweet Peaches. I’ve never had a dog who loved babies of all kinds like Peaches loved babies! Here she is with one of her MANY kittens.