[Dailydrool] Basset misidentification

[Anne Savidge]

One day many years ago in the summer, we were eating dinner (in the back of the house) when somebody opened our front screen door to slip a flyer in it. Our basset Sniffles leaped to her feet, bellowed several times, and raced for the door. Now, Sniffles was about as aggressive as a potted plant, but when she smelled somebody she didn't know, she barked--loudly and deeply. She sounded like a dog three times her size.

My Mom runs to the front of the house, and catches the flyer-leaver, a man from the Jaycees or something who was putting some kind of notice of a fundraiser around the neighborhood. His companion had started walking to the next house already when Sniffles went charging up to the door, scaring the guy who was still standing there. Mom held Sniffles' collar and opened the door to talk to the man, but Sniffles wanted to go out to meet him and she was a big girl, hard to hold onto when she got wiggly. Mom eased her outside to attach her collar to the chain in the front yard that we tied Sniffles on when she wanted to be out front. 

The guy sees her and yells to his companion, "You've got to see this! I think it's a hundred-pound dachsund!" My mother laughed and explained that Sniffles was a basset. Meanwhile, Sniffles just rolled over for belly rubs, and the flyer-leaver happily obliged.

We all laughed about that one for years. I got tired of hearing people call Sniffles a beagle, but I thought the dachsund comment was just so bizarre it was hilarious.

Auntie Anne