Hudson was rescued by B.O.N.E.S. from a bad situation in Limington, ME. After the gentleman called 911 (and subsequently passed away), the local ACO found 20 dogs living in squalid conditions.
B.O.N.E.S. took most of them and found them new homes. Overall, Hudson was in very good shape but when he had his physical, they found a serious mast cell tumor in his nose. As much as possible was removed.
B.O.N.E.S. wanted to find a wonderful home for Hudson and we did. John is a long-haul trucker that had lost his beagle companion of 13 years. He wanted a new companion. Luckily John found Hudson (or Hudson found John). It was a wonderful match. Hudson reported in regularly, and we share his "Chronicles" on this page.
Greetings from Spokane, WA.
John and I have been here in Spokane staying with John's sister and her family for the past week. We have been in the pacific northwest for the last two weeks due to a major breakdown with the truck.
We were on our way to Portland, OR two Sunday's ago with deliveries in Portland and Eugene, OR for Monday morning. We were about 75 miles east of Portland on US 14 traveling along the Columbia river in Washington on Monday morning, when the truck started to lose power and sputter. John Pulled over on a wide spot to see what the problem was. He was under the hood for about an hour. He changed a couple of hoses and some clamps that he thought might be leaking. This didn't do any good. So, he limped the truck into Portland and we made our first delivery. The truck had no power, was smoking badly, and when we came to a hill and the truck would start to pull, it would start rapping. John would back off the power and start grabbing gears to downshift as fast as he could to keep the rapping at a minimum. John called the customer in Eugene and was going to put off delivery until he got the problem fixed. By now he had figured it was a injector that had failed. The customer needed the machine we had on board, so we had ne choice but to deliver it. As it turned out, this was the right thing to do.
The next morning, we found a Peterbilt dealer in Portland that could take a look at the truck. Later that day, they found that a valve had dropped down into the cylinder and the piston had smashed into it and the piston was ruined. This happened in the number two cylinder, and the number one cylinder had damage as well. Furthermore, two more pistons had cracks in the tops, from age, more than anything else, but that meant poor John was looking at a major engine overhaul. There are only a few things that can happen on the road worse than an overhaul. First is a major accident involving major damage or injury, and second is a engine failure where a piston is pushed through the side of the engine block. This means the repair bill includes a whole new engine which is much more expensive than an overhaul.
Fortunately, there were no other bad surprises while they were tearing the engine down. They did find a few parts that needed to be replaced, but overall, they were relatively cheap.
Luckily the breakdown was within driving distance to Spokane, so we rented a car on Friday, after 4 days in a motel, and have been in Spokane ever since. It has been nice to spend time out here. Maggie and I have had a great time together, exploring, and I have even had a chance to sneak away and do my own exploring. There are coyotes and deer sorts of wild life to track. I even got to roll around in some nice stinky carcasses! How could things get any better!
John's sister broke her ankle the week before we arrived and had to go in for surgery last Tuesday, so it was good we were here, so John could help out around the house. He quickly learned his way around the kitchen, so he did a lot of the clean up duties. I don't think anyone wanted him around any food or appliances, Which is probably good.
The shop called Saturday morning to tell John that the truck as done. We are leaving tomorrow after John gets in touch with the bank to get the money headed to the dealership.
This is the kind of thing nobody wants to have to go through, but it's all part of the game. John had lots of calls from friends and family asking if they could help or just giving support. One broker heard about the breakdown, and called to tell John that he was sending the money for a recent load immediately. It's a good example of how tight the trucking community is and also that there are plenty of people out there that are there for you in one way or another when hard times arrive.
With a little luck, we can get back into the truck, find some loads, and start back up and get some money coming in to replace what we had.
Hudson, the semi-beagle
That just about wraps it up for now.
