You want the cute?... You can't handle the cute.

Everyone will be posting their 9/11 remembrances today. We're observing the day as well here at Castle Paladin, but I thought I would provide a little soul Gatorade so you can take a wee break from the somberness. That's important too.

Meet Gunny..

Gunny is short for "Gunnery Sergeant XXXX", with the "X's" being the rest of his registered name we haven't settled on yet. He's black and tan bloodhound that we picked up in Mississippi this weekend. It was a loooooong drive there and back. About 10 hours each way.

Gunny slept most of the way on the floorboard between Mrs. Paladin's feet. We stopped every couple of hours at roadside parks to stretch all of our legs. He made the trip like a champ.

He's only 10 weeks old, if you can believe that! He weighs 23 lbs already and his feet are almost as big as our Rottweiler's feet were at full grown. He's gonna be a big boy.

We looked high and low for a closer source for a bloodhound puppy over the past few months. We found some in Texas, but to be honest when you looked at them and the parents they looked more like bloodhound mixes instead of the full blooded animals they were. If I was going to plonk down cash for a bloodhound, by God I wanted one that looked every bit of the part.

I'm hoping to start him on Mantrailing exercises soon - just to see if he and I have an aptitude for it. I include myself in this evaluation, because all the tools and skill are already in the dog. Its more a matter of whether I can synch myself into his doggie brain and interpret what he tells me and communicate with him enough to get him to get "the game".

He's already good at the leaf search and destroy missions...