[Dailydrool] Mortality in Bassets -- Remembering Abbey

[Pat Dill]

In response to Ginny, who asked for stories about long-lived bassets, our oldest basset lived to the age of 16.  Abbey, adopted from Tri-State Basset Hound Rescue, didn't come to us until she was about twelve.  Her family was in financial crisis and had to move to a place that wouldn't take dogs.  They were heartbroken to give her up, and she was (temporarily) heartbroken to leave them.  But that irrepressible basset good nature kicked in, and soon Abbey decided she liked life with four other hounds.  She was tri-color, mostly brown, with really long fur and a bushy tail.  We would have suspected she was a mix except for the "pedigree" that came with her (which also proved her age).  She eventually became alpha dog but was always a good-natured queen bee.  She loved all humans and every dog she met except Rosie, our Jamoboree hound, whom she despised from the moment she met her until the day Abbey died.  Abbey began to develop canine cognitive dysfunction at about the age of 14, and we treated her successfully first with Chinese herbs and later with anipryl.  The last year of her life she was so daft she wouldn't eat out of a bowl like a normal hound and had to be hand fed.  But Abbey was always happy.  (She didn't know she was senile!)  The last month or so she began to have brain seizures, and we knew she was no longer enjoying life.  On the morning that we took her to the vet for the final time, Abbey, weak as she was from yet another seizure, made her way to each dog to touch noses, knowing in her wise hound way that it was goodbye.  Except for Rosie, of course, whom she walked right past.

We cherished every day we had with Abbey.

Pat Dill & Carol Sharp

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