[Dailydrool] Been a Long, Long Time!!!

[Eva Swiger]

Hello, Droolers!
 
I don't even remember the last time I posted, but I've seen a few others recently who've chimed in similarly, so I figured I'd share, too.  Work and life in general got very very busy, and chiming in on the drool is one of the things that just slipped off my plate.  Along with cleaning my house.  :)  But I think things are getting back under control and life is getting a little closer to back to normal.  
 
Here in Maryland, our basset girl Penny is now about 4 1/2 and doing great.  She's still on the small side at about 39 pounds, but our Vetman is happy with her size/weight.  We keep using the Purple Power ear cleaning solution, and the Vetman laughed out loud at our last visit, saying he's never had a basset patient who hasn't had some kinda ear funk (his exact words), so we're very pleased at how that's working. We've only had a few issues -- she eats all sorts of stuff she shouldn't, so she now wears a basket muzzle when we're in an environment where we can't control what she has access to (around young kids who drop small eat-able toys, walking on the beach where there could be all sorts of dead fish or jelly fish or what-have-you that wash up, etc.).  She doesn't seem to mind it and it still allows her to sniff to her heart's content, though her new nickname is Hannibal Basset.  It also removes a lot of our anxiety that every adventure she takes could result in a trip to the vetspital to remove another foreign object...  (So far, we've only had to go that route once before we knew she had a devouring-disposition and we've adjusted the way we function accordingly.)  She also seems to have a tummy that's very sensitive to being empty (I know -- all of our bassets wish we believed that about them...  :) ).  If she goes too long without a meal and her belly ends up producing too much acid, (10-12 hours or so) she'll have yellow-bile vomiting, but we just need to manage that her tummy just doesn't go empty for that long.  We generally feed her as soon as we get up and then again right before bed, and we're still working through the details of exactly what schedule will work for her.  I think we'll be giving a late afternoon "snack" of a handful of kibble with a pepcid.  We've found that if we feed her too early in the evening, she has bile puke in her crate when we get up in the morning, so adding this middle-of-the-day "snack" and keeping her dinner right at bedtime might be the best solution for her.  Overall, her energy is super-high and she's doing great!
 
But her energy was a little too high for just me and my husband were up for (even with frequent walks and play sessions), so last July, we adopted her a new brudder, Sammy, an English Bulldog who will turn 6 this month.  And they are the best pair -- a little like Abbot and Costello!  They chase each other around, chew on each other, wrestle, and then snuggle when they're all done.  My husband loves that someone in our house now makes more obnoxious noises than he does!!  Sammy snores, grunts, whines, huffs-and-puffs, sneezes, passes gas, and even bleats like a goat sometimes.  Our household is now noisier, furrier, smellier, and a little more crowded, but everybody is much happier with our addition, and he seems to be happy in his new forever home.  I don't want to go on too long about a non-basset, so I'll stop there.  
 
Suffice it to say, Penny and Sammy are running the household to their satisfaction, and they let us know when we fall short.  We're all doing well, and we'll send tons and tons of drool to all those in need.  Congrats, also, to Nigel, Llewis, Conley, Mr. Cooper Sir, and MomPerson on getting back under one roof!!!  
 
Eva, Penny, & Sammy 		 	   		  
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