[Dailydrool] Response to Advice Needed + Drool History + Basset Story

[CeAnne Harbin]

Well, you’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been gone a while so this may be long….
 
1.  For Claire, regarding your babies and their lumps – at the time you got the advice about Pro Plan, it likely may have been one of the better foods out there on the Market, so don’t be upset with your old vet…and certainly don’t blame yourself.  You were doing exactly what you knew was right for your babies.  Bassets are just lumpy, that’s a fact…it’s very common for them to get lumps as they age.  Food quality probably does play a large part in that, as well as a million other factors that we may not even be aware of.  I feed my dogs Innova (made by Natura) and they love it and seem to be doing very well on it.  It was recommended to me once by a wonderful holistic vet.  But, it can be kind of expensive; although they’ve recently come out with a new variety called HealthWise that is much more reasonably priced, yet seems to be just as good for your babies.  Just know that all dogs are different and you may have to experiment
 some.  All of Natura’s foods made it onto the Whole Dog Journal’s Best Dry Foods of 2009 list – a great barometer for quality food.  Another brand (along with many, many others) that made the list is Diamond Pet Products (makers of Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul and Taste of the Wild).  I’m not sure about Taste of the Wild (I hear GREAT things about it), but I do know that that “Chicken Soup” brand is sold in PetSmart and Petco and such, so it is probably pretty reasonably priced and easy to get your hands on.  Good luck with your babies, I know it is so scary when they get sick and it is really hard when you think that something could have been done to prevent it.  You’ll never know that for sure though; you can’t change anything in the past, but you can sure take anything new that you learn and go forward knowing you are doing everything in your capacity to do the right thing for your houndies!!
 
2.  I joined the Drool in 2002 or 2003 and like everyone else have found it to be comforting and helpful and sad and funny all at the same time.  I’ve lost a couple of hounds since then, and the wonderful e-mails and support from everyone really got me through those extremely rough times.  Unfortunately, when I lost my sweetest baby girl Summer, I just had to stop reading the drool for a while (she died a couple of years ago).   I just couldn’t take it!!  Reading about the houndies that had passed and those were sick just brought up all of those awful feelings again for me and I just wasn’t strong enough to handle it at the time…although I missed it dearly.  I’m finally back, only my timing was horrible…I just barely missed the deadline to get my two babies into the Drool Calendar…which I have continued to order while I was “off list” and enjoy immensely every day.  I was able to get them in for 2009 (October 27th – Jack and
 Emma); you can only see the backs of them because that was the only decent picture where I was able to get the two of them together in one shot.  Ha!!  Stinkers!!  And I was way wrong with my caption….October 27th was their 2 year Gotcha Day Anniversary, not their 1st…oops!!  These two are my heart and soul and I am so happy that I adopted them (4 the Hounds Basset Rescue is wonderful!!).  These two make me laugh daily and are just so sweet and precious and have really helped to heal the hole in my heart that was left when my beloved Summer passed away.
 
3.  Okay, if you aren’t bored with me yet, I do have a funny Basset Hound story that I may have already shared…but it would have been several years ago that I did it, so I’m going to share it again.  My first ever beloved Basset Hound, Missy, was MY BABY.  I loved and adored her, even though she was super naughty!!  She got into mischief that rivals many of the OEBE’s on the list today…but she had the sweetest, most innocent face…and just a real sense of comic timing so it was hard to be too mad at her when she pulled one of her “pranks”.  This particular day was beautiful and bright and shining……my younger twin brothers were either moving into or out of their dorm room at Texas Tech University (can’t remember which)…..all I know is that they wanted to take Missy up with them while they finished packing/unpacking the rest of their stuff.  Apparently, Missy was a “chick magnet”…who knew!!  So, up they go with one of
 their best friends to finish up.  I gave them strict orders to watch her every minute and bring her back down the second they were through.  They all knew how much I adored this dog and that if anything ever happened to her, their lives would basically be over!!  Ha!!  Apparently, while up there (it was a pretty high floor, although I don’t remember exactly how high), they all happened to turn their backs for “one second” and when they turned back around Missy was GONE!!!  They looked everywhere for her.  The door to their room was closed so they had no idea where she could have gone until they noticed the open window that one of the beds sat next to.  Yes…she had crawled out of the window onto a ledge and was walking along it.  The friend was closest to the window and he knew that it would be worth his while to risk his life to get her (easier than facing me if anything happened to her!!)…so he did…he crawled out on that ledge after
 her, risking life and limb.  Luckily, a room a couple of doors down had their window open too and Missy stuck her head in and jumped down from the ledge onto one of their beds and just sat their looking at two VERY surprised college students who really started laughing when Darrell crawled in the window after her, swearing loudly, I’m sure.  He apologized to the guys profusely and brought Missy straight back down to her Mom.   They waited quite a while to tell me that story….they knew that if I had any inkling how close she came to getting hurt up there, I might go ahead and kill them anyway.  Luckily, I was able to laugh at the story, but vowed to never let them take Missy anywhere again!!  They’d just have to come up with another way to attract women!!  By the way, they are all three happily married now, so I guess they figured it out.  And Missy, well she died many years later of cancer, but only after having a very happy and
 adventurous life full of love and adoration!!
 
Hugs, kisses and Drool to all of the sick hounds out there….and my sincere condolences to those who have lost their babies.  I know how terribly hard it is, they are looking down wanting us to be happy and know that even though their time with us was short….they know they were lucky to be loved and cherished by someone!!  However, as it turns out, we were the lucky to have loved them!!
 
CeAnne (Lucky Mom to wonderful Jack and Emma)
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