[Dailydrool] Basset fix

[Anne Savidge]

I had to go down to my parents' house in Wimberley, Texas, this past weekend to pick up something that was too big to be mailed to me, so I had another opportunity to spend time with Inspector Clouseau, the basset that my parents adopted in the spring from my sister Susan's band of fosters.

In some ways, the Inspector is SO basset, and in some ways, he seems like an alien from another planet in a basset's body. Inspector loves his daily morning walk---so much so that he starts ahroo'ing the instant either of my parents leaves the kitchen after breakfast and heads for their bedroom to change into "walkies clothes." If they emerge in Sunday church attire, he hangs his head and looks very depressed. (He'll still get his walk, but it has to wait until after church.)

The Inspector is keenly interested in sniffing every blade of grass and rock along his 45-minute regular walk route, but he almost never notices the white-tailed deer that stroll through the yard. He was out on the screened porch with my mother  early Sunday morning when a family of raccoons tried to sneak over to the unscreened section of the back porch and steal some cat food. He never even lifted his head. 

When Dad cooks breakfast, the Inspector is directly underfoot, usually lying on the floor directly in front of the stove---the better to catch any tidbits that fall, accidentally or on purpose. He is known to counter-surf, which Mom discovered when she couldn't find a nearly empty tub of whipped butter one day. She eventually found it, licked completely clean, under a chair in the dining room. Generally, though, the Inspector's  interest in food is pretty minimal. He has never been interested in the Kong that I gave him, and while he likes treats, he's kind of blase about them. When my parents have dinner, he goes into the den and naps. He never begs at the table.

The Inspector can sleep with the best of them. My parents call him their narcoleptic dog because he is always flopping down and napping wherever he happens to be, even in odd spots like just barely over a  threshold or half-on and half-off one of his dog beds. He loves to get up on the love seat and rest his head on a pillow there.

Whether acting very typically basset or not, though, the Inspector is a very sweet boy. He's generally calm and quiet and well-behaved, and he has the silkiest long ears ever. 

Now it's only a month until the North Texas Basset Hound Rescue Shuffle, and I can gt a BIG basset fix then!

Auntie Anne