[Dailydrool] To get or not to get a Basset

Tue Feb 2 19:30:10 PST 2010

Here is another pile of probably unneeded comments on bassets and their merits or demerits.  We have had bassets since April of 1983.  I never intend to be without one in the future.  My husband had no intention of getting a basset.  He wanted a cocker spaniel.  They are beautiful dogs but I was acquainted with one who belonged in the doggie loonie bin or maybe it was me.  

We started with puppies.  Got one and it was lonely and wouldn't eat or settle so we went back and got the sister.  They were the most beautiful basset girls I have ever seen.  We were absolutely clueless about puppies and bassets but that didn't stop us.  We met the town crazy lady because of them.  We had a book about beagles shoved through our mail slot because of them.  We learned all about flat bassets before I knew there was such a thing.  They liked to be carried on their walks as puppies.   No need for them exert themselves when there was a perfectly good human with two good legs to walk for them.  We learned that eating peony flower buds is poisonous to bassets and that they like wallpaper and that they even like a nice red wine when you are hiding it from your mother in law in a very high cupboard and it blows its cork when it gets hot and drips down on your bassets and they just have to clean each other up.  We learned about sitter uppers when one of our pups just sat up on her own one day.  We learned that some bassets have to be taught to go up and down stairs and others just know how.  Sassy taught Daisy by coaxing her up and by pulling her by the ears one step at a time to come down.  We learned that some bassets are part mountain goat and can climb a wood pile to sit on top of their dog house so they can watch the kids coming home from school and make sure they get home ok  even when they are the neighbor kids.  Our first two bassets taught us to care about something besides ourselves.  They also taught us that animals can be very forgiving as they forgave us for having two legged kids who sat on them, looked in their ears, looked under their eyelids, and in general destroyed the peace in their home.  

We have had several bassets, each with different personalities.  We got our Sunny as a rescue before we knew anything about rescue groups.  She taught us that bassets have long memories which can be good and bad.  She also taught us to perservere.  We couldn't make her into a placid pet but we loved her anyway and I think she loved us in her own way.  Sherlock, the only male basset we have had taught us that some bassets don't play.  He never saw the need to play anything but he loved us with all his heart.  Ninja has taught us that it is good to be queen.  She is our little queen and always a mommie's girl.  Marley has taught us that just because a dog eats carpets, bedspreads and crates in one house, she won't necessarily do it in another.  She is the resident crab but she is a loving crab.  She wants to know we still love her.  Maggie has taught us that it is good to be silly, and goofy, and clumsy, and big and smooshy and maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  She is the biggest princess and takes her half out of the middle of any sleeping convenience.  And then there is Shelby.   She came to rescue in Iowa because her person died.  She stayed there a little while.  Then they brought her to us on a cold December night.  We took her home and she had to walk into a house with three other basset girls.  She was 13 and the shortest fattest girl I have ever seen.  They all met in the back yard and it was good. Shelby taught us that just because you are old doesn't mean you can't adapt to new things.  Old is just a state of mind and body sometimes. Shelby has taught us that there is life after the person you have loved goes away and you have to go live with other houndettes and people.  Life can be fine when you have a bed and blanket and backyard and someone to carry you to bed every night.  I never thought Miss Shelby would make it this far.  It worried me that she had to leave everything and everyone she had ever loved to live with us.  She is an amazing old girl.  She is positively full of bassitude.  She bellows to go out, come in and for treats and loves.  She also moos and oinks.  The only problem she has encountered here is that she cannot climb stairs.  We have a two story house so her butler/slave carries her up to bed every night.  She can come down on her own. Life is good.

For anyone thinking of loving a basset, I would say go for it.  It won't be fun all the time and it will be messy and hairy at times but the love you give to these short, big-footed clowns will be returned many, many times over. The love never stops.  As I type this, Ninja  has her butt against my hip.  Marley is snoring on the loveseat, Maggie is in the Dad's chair snoring and Shelby is in the donut having her mid evening lap.  There is probably enough hair on the floor to create a new dog from scratch, my walls need to be scrubbed to remove all the basset high marks, someone stole the biscuit bag that is now empty, the kitchen floor really needs mopping (feeding four big girls in there puts a lot of stuff on the floor) and the back yard is in need of lots of grass seed for the spring and a good cleaning of poopcicles too.  Would I be better off without bassets?  I would certainly have more money and nicer looking grass and fewer footprints on the leather sofa.  Buttttttttttttt.............................I wouldn't trade any of these girls for anything.  They are what makes us a complete family.  My boys all love animals, even the one who is freaked out by dog hair.   They have grown up caring for these goofy souls.  My son who is studying in Australia loves emails about the fur as he calls them.  He received many of the Basset cards and has shown his landlady, roommate and friends pictures of his girls.  When there is a basset at home you are never lonely.  And you will never be unloved.  

The girls wish Miss Penney a happy birthday and anyone else that the mom's half dead brain can't remember.  They are also sending drool to those who are ill or just droopy.  Snooters from Ninja, Marley, Maggie, Shelby and the wild kitty boys

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