[Dailydrool] Names

[Donna Lindy]

So many great memories of hounds from the past reading everyone’s posts!

My first bassets were litter mates, Chuck and Bob.  Named for 2 characters 
in the sit com SOAP. One was a dummy but that was NOT why we chose
the names - we just liked the way they went together.  Chuck and Bob were
my Christmas present in 1986. Little did Bill know that he had opened a real
can of . . . hounds!

When we lost Chuck at age 11 to cancer, Bill did not want to get another
basset.  He said he would always compare him or her to Chuck. I said that
was nonsense. They all have different personalities. So, we got Elmo and 
Pauline, both already named. I loved their names - both of them fit them 
perfectly and they made me smile. Elmo was also known as Elmo Bud, Mr. 
Mo and Mo.

My neighbor took one look at my new girl and exclaimed “Miss Pauline” 
and that’s who she was.  Bob growled at her when she went to get on his
couch.  She just looked at him and got right up there anyway. Yep, the
Queen had arrived!  Pauline was also a Pwincess on the Drool and was
also called Paulie and Lenie.  

After we lost Bob, we got Gracie. We got to name her.  She chose me and 
was loyal to me to the end.  In spite of a crooked leg, she was a bulldozer
and came flying in and out of the doggie door like a maniac. So she was
also Crazie Gracie!  I found the Drool not long after getting Gracie - that 
was 2002, I think. 

About a year after we got Gracie, Dudley was given to us by a breeder 
who had gotten sick and couldn’t care for him. Gracie potty trained him in 3 
days and then taught him how to use the doggie door.  She was amazing!  
Dudley’s name when we got him was Duck.  Um,no.  So we called him Duck 
Duck Dudley for a few days and he became our Dudley, Duddy, Dudders, 
Dudman.

Losing Dudley before his 5th birthday was a nightmare and many of you
may remember that week it played on out the Drool. Prayer vigils were
held and in the end, amazing donations were made to cover his huge
vet bills that in the end did not save him.  My vet was amazed at this
group and I will be forever grateful for the love we were shown. It’s why
I do secret pawtner and part of why I do Debbies Dawgs. 

Elmo, Pauline, Gracie and Dudley were known on the Drool as my 16 
Paws.  You can’t have 16 Paws with only 12 paws so Bosley, who was
an owner return to Dudley’s breeder, came to live with us.  The sweetest
boy ever.  His name was Bosque and we just morphed it into Bosley. He
was known as Bos and the Nudge because he would ever so gently nudge
you for attention.  Bosley was a Pwince on the Drool.

We lost Pauline during Bill’s chemo treatments and that was the end of
4 bassets for us.  Not knowing what the future would hold, we decided
to stay put for a while.  Bill was fine, though, and when we lost Elmo
just after his 14th birthday the following year, we got Sunny who was 
another owner return to Elmo and Pauline’s breeder.  Her name was 
Sunshine but she was known as Sunny and since she was almost 4, 
we left it alone.  She was also known as SunBun and Little Diddle.  
The pet psychic at the Michigan Waddle told me that Sunny was particularly 
fond of SunBun 

We lost Gracie in 2015 at 14.  A few months later, I was at an adoption
event for BHRG and Maggie had just been returned by her owner 
because he could not care for her any more. I offered to foster her and
we ended up adopting her.  We were going to morph her name into something
else as we’d had another Maggie (my son’s sheltie that we had inherited
during the 16 Paws’ stint) but in the end we stuck with it. She’s just the
best dog and the perfect example of why you should adopt a senior.

In 2016 Bosley went to the Bridge and because of our ages and 
the increasing costs of caring for a dog, plus my decreased mobility, 
we decided to stick with 2 hounds.The following year we were stunned
and heartbroken when Sunny, at age 7, was diagnosed with fibrosarcoma.
With 8 bassets at the Bridge, we had pretty much decided that Maggie
would be our last hound.  We also call her Magatha, Mags, Maggie Boo.

Yeah, right.  In early April of last  year, let’s just say some signs from
Sunny and maybe some of my other hounds led me to foster to adopt
YaYa.  I didn’t even ask Bill - just emailed a pic of her to him upstairs
with a note - what do you think?  He came downstairs and I thought
uh-oh but what he said was Do we have to keep her name?  Yes,
we do.  Her name has something to do with why I knew she was 
supposed to be mine.  And so the next day YaYa, who turned 8 
at the end of that month, came to live with us.  She is another
wonderful example of why adopting a senior hound is such a great
thing to do. Well, she does dig and doesn’t mind doing that in the rain and
has some other somewhat undesirable things that she does but oh
my - she is so many of our previous bassets rolled into one.  YaYa
is also known as Yadi, Ya and Yadi YaYa.

YaYa unfortunately was recently diagnosed with T-Zone lymphoma,
which is supposed to be the best kind to have if you have to have
lymphoma.  She is currently undergoing treatment and has a better
prognosis than T-Cell or B-Cell lymphomas - with a little luck she 
should be able to have at least a normal life span for a hound, hopefully
to at least 11. You’d never know she was not well except that she
sleeps very deeply, meaning you can open the refrigerator door
and she doesn’t notice! She still hunts her critters.  Vole season
is just about here so we expect things to get interesting as we
have them in the back yard!

SO those are the Lindy bassets 1 - 10.  It seems to be a good
number to end on.  5 boys, 5 girls.  But never say never . . .

Donna, drool fueler for Maggie and YaYa, forever missing Chuck,
Bob, Dudley, Pauline, Elmo, Gracie, Bosley and Sunny 

Note: some of the missing punctuation is try to eliminate some of
the ? that appear in my posts