Strider and sibling at less than a week old, enjoying the sunshine in the aftermath of a serious Kentucky flood. They slept through it, of course, blissfully oblivious. Two other puppies completed the crew of orphans; three of them went to other homes, and Strider stayed with us.

Mother & son, bonding.

For a while we thought he might be Bigfoot's cousin. But such a handsome young man! Here he's about 3 months old--right about the time he tracked his first quarry, inch by wandering, circling, zig-zagging inch across the wide yard: A box turtle.

Yawn! Strider in the Virginia sunshine, having learned how to lounge in inimitable hound fashion

Nothing deterred Strider from a trail...not even when his quarry went high. He shinnied up trees without low branches and bounded high into those that had them. I grew accustomed to the unique experience of yelling to my dog, "Get down out of that tree!"

Strider had the unusual ability to make himself weigh many times his normal poundage. "He's Very Heavy," we'd say to one another when we spotted him doing this trick. We never figured out how he did it, but it was an effective strategy to keep himself from losing prime snoozing territory. This is Strider in classic Heavy Mode, having claimed an unusual space during a household move.

When he was 3 years old, Strider bounded off after a varmint and didn't return. Early the next day I went to the top of the ridge and bellowed for him, and far in the distance I could hear his reply; he led me to the cliff he'd been thrown over when he was hit by a car on the winding mountain road. Concussed, his hip broken and the leg dislocated, he did his best to help me as I climbed back up with him. I'm still not sure how we did it; I call it his Lassie Moment. The hip never healed well enough to bear weight, and eventually he had surgery to remove the top of his femur. The knob of his thighbone formed a new joint in his muscle, and it served him perfectly well right up to the end. While he healed, our kitten took advantage of his immobility, and could usually be found sleeping next to or on top of Strider, much to Strider's digust.

Always dignified, no matter what we did with him....

Another mother/son moment, in his later years.

Basking at about 12 years old...if you take a look at his hind leg, you'll see it's cocked back in a way that no normal hip joint would allow. This is only one of several things he could do with that leg that would make your skin crawl if you didn't know how he was doing it...

This is how I want to remember him...my loyal tree-climbing hound.

May his spirit run free through the mountains, the scents stay strong in his nose, and the trail ever beckon. Until we meet again, I will do my best to honor him.