[Dailydrool] Naughty Basset

[rebecca lando]

Okay, I am still a couple days  behind (but catching up, I swear!) but I
couldn't help but chime in on the "Naughty Basset" question.

Our Humphrey is very well-behaved for a basset puppy. We have spent a lot of
time and money to train him. I highly recommend you continue to train your
pup. But don't expect perfect behavior, after all, she's a free-thinking,
nose-following hound, not a breed built more for obedience like a lab.

Humphrey knows "sit." He knows "stay." He knows "leave it," and "off," and
"touch that and I'll throw you out the window" (which he also knows is a
joke). He knows to look us in the eye and wait to be released before he
touches a piece of food, even if it's in his bowl. He is a VERY good puppy.

But having a basset - having ANY puppy - requires you to train yourself,
too. I left my closet open one day and Humphrey chewed off part of the back
of my $250 Frye boots. Kit left his brand-new, $700 Oliver Peoples glasses
on his bedside table even though he knew Humphrey has a thing for designer
eyewear, and now he's been confined to contacts for 2 months. There was also
a porterhouse steak left on a picnic table this summer, a baguette hanging
off the edge of a counter, an entire basil plant, numerous bowls of cat
food, more pints of beer than I'd like to admit, and a close call with Kit's
wallet. The list goes on and on and on. And what we've learned is that if
we're not willing or able to supervise our puppy every second of the day, he
is apt to get into something. So if we want to keep our stuff safe, it's our
responsibility to keep our boots shut in the closet, or our glasses in their
case in the drawer.

And, for the record, it isn't just bassets. In high school, my Aussie chewed
up the edges of all the carpets in our house. Before that, shepherd/lab mix
gnawed through the legs of the piano bench and through the tv cable. Even
Bix, our 12-year-old Akita/St. Bernard mix, who is known for being a perfect
gentleman, was famous when he was younger for stealing any kind of roasted
meat off the counter if you turned your back for 5 seconds. Dogs live by
their teeth and they are no more perfectly behaved than we are.

Yeah, it's frustrating when this little animal you've spent time and money
training eats or gets into something s/he shouldn't. But think of it like a
baby or toddler - *you* know that playing with electrical outlets is
dangerous, and you know that that antique glass bowl will shatter if it hits
the floor, but you know your baby doesn't know this. So you plug up the
outlets and put the antique glass bowl a little higher up, out of baby's
reach. Why wouldn't you do the same for your dog?


We send drool to all in need, especially Daisy and her family.

- Rebecca, Kit, Professor Bix, and Humphrey
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