[Dailydrool] Daily Drooling since . . .

[Elizabeth]

I discovered the Drool in 2003 while doing an Internet search for information to help me with an aging basset whose failing appetite had become a real concern. I received many helpful suggestions but, alas, it was our Jane Basset’s time to go and her appetite loss was part of her dying process. She left us on July 25, 2003, and even though I hadn’t been on the Drool a month, I received many kind condolence notes. 

Then in 2004 came our Elsinore Basset, Jane’s worthy successor, who developed a close friendship with our friend Jennifer’s bassets Macy and Owen. Macy died rather young in 2007 of some sort of oral cancer and Owen of old age in 2015, just three months before Elsinore of cancer. Our current basset is Young Charlie, who’s twelve chronologically but still a very youthful, naughty two- or three-year-old in his heart. He joined us in 2006 at the age of ten months and is the reason I’ll never have another puppy. I was exhausted by the time the brown truck finally arrived to deliver his brains. 

Before I joined the Drool, I was aware of no-kill animal shelters, which is where we found our Jane. But the Drool has made me considerably more aware of not only basset rescue groups but rescue groups for other specific breeds and for mixed-breed dogs. 

Over the years I've gathered so much helpful health and behavioral information from the collective wisdom of the Drool and received so much advice for specific concerns. It’s been an invaluable resource, and I can’t imagine being without it.

The Drool has also given me countless opportunities to laugh out loud, often on days when I really needed a good laugh. I still can’t think about the story of Annie and the Thanksgiving turkey (“wings a flappin’ ”) without a chuckle. Or Zoe Lorca’s story about Fang sexually assaulting a K-9 officer, Mary Mischelle Kemp’s story about Flint’s pet mouse and making bacon for Tasselhoff in the wee hours of the morning, Grandma Jo’s story about Earl getting drunk, Susan Randolph’s story about accidentally losing her clothing while marching a truant basset back home in the rain. Or stories about da Moose the Dopeycrat basset heavily involved in pollytickles and Miss Angela’s perpetual struggles to keep her employer in line. Or anything written by Bev Szaton and the late Debbie Winchester—the Drool’s two James Witcombe Rileys or Joel Chandler Harrises—who have perfected the exceedingly fine art of writing in regional basset dialect.

Writing the paragraph above had me looking up and rereading those old stories and laughing all over again. Not a bad way to start a gloomy, rainy Sunday morning. 

Elizabeth