[Dailydrool] The great vacuum debate

[Swartz]

A big hello to all the hound slaves and healing drool to all the hounds and 
their humans that are in need.
I wish that the fairy basset mother would come down and wave a magic paw and 
make everyhound healthy...There is nothing worse then a sick furbaby!
Nancy,
I did the same thing when I remodeled the Castle Basset, ripped up all the 
carpet and refinished the hard wood floors.  The kitchen has linoleum in it 
and I use a shop vac to vaccuum it, and it works well.
    Funny story: Storm who is ATB now, used to love to be vaccuumed by the 
shop vac and every time that I would  pull it out he would come into the 
kitchen, lay down and would not move until he was throughly vaccuumed.  The 
rest of my hounds ran for the door to be let out to escape the evil thing. 
But Storm loved it!
As for the wood floors my husband (the family product resercher) looked up 
in Consumer Report and found that for the amount of money that I was willing 
to spend that the Kenmore Progressive Direct Drive Inteli Clean was the best 
for the combination floors (hardwood, tile, and area rugs)  It works great 
on picking up the hair and other dirt. and has upholstery attachements,  a 
hepa filter with hepa filter bags (which seems to help with my allergies) 
It was about $300.00...I hear that if you want to spend a bit more money 
that the Dyson Animal is the best vac for picking up pet hair but I believe 
that it is about 600 bucks. That's alot of hound treats!

If you want to try to reduce the amout of fur coming off the hounds I would 
recommend TheraCoat from Davis Veterinary Products. It is a dietary 
supplement for improved coats and over all well-being.  It is a granular 
mixture of amino acids, Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids, vitamine B and linoleic 
acid.  I put Colt and Ruger on it upon recommendation from Randal (owner of 
U-Scrub-a-Pup: self serve dog wash) in Dec 2009  because they were having 
recurrent contact dermitatis break-outs on their tummies.  Since being on it 
no more tummy irritation, their coats glisten and are so soft (their whole 
body is now as soft as their ears) And best part is the amount of shedding 
has been drastically reduced  bybetter than 1/2.   You can sprinkle this on 
their food or I sprinkle it on their after dinner yogurt treat.

Marlene,
I almost fell out of the chair laughing so hard at your story.  Brought back 
memories of some of my ATB hounds!  Comanche darn need dislocated my 
shoulder  on a walk once when he saw the cat that sat on the fence and would 
torment him.

Laura,
Thanks for the warm welcome.  The hounds & I appreciate it.

Thankfully the Bad A** Basset Brothers are doing great and staying busy 
keeping the terrorist squirrels out of the yard, and running a basset 500 
every night through the back yard...I literaly have a dirt track in my back 
yard from their chases/races.

Happy Tails to all,
Michele, Colt, Ruger
"Well Behaved Hounds Rarely Make History"