<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman">Well, you’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been gone a while so this may be long….</FONT></P>
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<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in" class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman">1. For Claire, regarding your babies and their lumps – at the time you got the advice about Pro Plan, it likely may have been one of the better foods out there on the Market, so don’t be upset with your old vet…and certainly don’t blame yourself.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You were doing exactly what you knew was right for your babies.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Bassets are just lumpy, that’s a fact…it’s very common for them to get lumps as they age.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Food quality probably does play a large part in that, as well as a million other factors that we may not even be aware of.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I feed my dogs Innova (made by Natura) and they love it and seem to be doing very well on it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </SPAN>It was recommended to me once by a wonderful holistic vet.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But, it can be kind of expensive; although they’ve recently come out with a new variety called HealthWise that is much more reasonably priced, yet seems to be just as good for your babies.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Just know that all dogs are different and you may have to experiment some.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All of Natura’s foods made it onto the Whole Dog Journal’s Best Dry Foods of 2009 list – a great barometer for quality food.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Another brand (along with many, many others) that made the list is Diamond Pet Products (makers of Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul and Taste of the Wild).<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m not sure about Taste of the Wild (I hear GREAT things about it), but I do know that that
“Chicken Soup” brand is sold in PetSmart and Petco and such, so it is probably pretty reasonably priced and easy to get your hands on.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Good luck with your babies, I know it is so scary when they get sick and it is really hard when you think that something could have been done to prevent it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You’ll never know that for sure though; you can’t change anything in the past, but you can sure take anything new that you learn and go forward knowing you are doing everything in your capacity to do the right thing for your houndies!!</FONT></P>
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<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in" class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman">2. I joined the Drool in 2002 or 2003 and like everyone else have found it to be comforting and helpful and sad and funny all at the same time.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’ve lost a couple of hounds since then, and the wonderful e-mails and support from everyone really got me through those extremely rough times.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Unfortunately, when I lost my sweetest baby girl Summer, I just had to stop reading the drool for a while (she died a couple of years ago).<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I just couldn’t take it!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Reading</st1:place></st1:City> about the houndies that had passed and
those were sick just brought up all of those awful feelings again for me and I just wasn’t strong enough to handle it at the time…although I missed it dearly.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I’m finally back, only my timing was horrible…I just barely missed the deadline to get my two babies into the Drool Calendar…which I have continued to order while I was “off list” and enjoy immensely every day.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I was able to get them in for 2009 (October 27th – Jack and Emma); you can only see the backs of them because that was the only decent picture where I was able to get the two of them together in one shot.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Ha!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Stinkers!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And I was way wrong with my caption….October 27th was their 2 year Gotcha Day Anniversary, not their 1st…oops!!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>These two are my heart and soul and I am so happy that I adopted them (4 the Hounds Basset Rescue is wonderful!!).<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>These two make me laugh daily and are just so sweet and precious and have really helped to heal the hole in my heart that was left when my beloved Summer passed away.</FONT></P>
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<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in" class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman">3. Okay, if you aren’t bored with me yet, I do have a funny Basset Hound story that I may have already shared…but it would have been several years ago that I did it, so I’m going to share it again.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My first ever beloved Basset Hound, Missy, was MY BABY. I loved and adored her, even though she was super naughty!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>She got into mischief that rivals many of the OEBE’s on the list today…but she had the sweetest, most innocent face…and just a real sense of comic timing so it was hard to be too mad at her when she pulled one of her “pranks”.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This particular day was beautiful and bright and shining……my younger twin brothers were either moving into or out of their dorm room at
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Texas</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Tech</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> (can’t remember which)…..all I know is that they wanted to take Missy up with them while they finished packing/unpacking the rest of their stuff. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Apparently, Missy was a “chick magnet”…who knew!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So, up they go with one of their best friends to finish up.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I gave them strict orders to watch her every minute and bring her back down the second they were through.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They all knew how much I adored this dog and that if anything ever happened to her, their lives would basically be over!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Ha!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Apparently, while up
there (it was a pretty high floor, although I don’t remember exactly how high), they all happened to turn their backs for “one second” and when they turned back around Missy was GONE!!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They looked everywhere for her.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The door to their room was closed so they had no idea where she could have gone until they noticed the open window that one of the beds sat next to.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Yes…she had crawled out of the window onto a ledge and was walking along it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The friend was closest to the window and he knew that it would be worth his while to risk his life to get her (easier than facing me if anything happened to her!!)…so he did…he crawled out on that ledge after her, risking life and limb.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Luckily, a room a couple of doors down had their
window open too and Missy stuck her head in and jumped down from the ledge onto one of their beds and just sat their looking at two VERY surprised college students who really started laughing when Darrell crawled in the window after her, swearing loudly, I’m sure.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He apologized to the guys profusely and brought Missy straight back down to her Mom.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They waited quite a while to tell me that story….they knew that if I had any inkling how close she came to getting hurt up there, I might go ahead and kill them anyway.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Luckily, I was able to laugh at the story, but vowed to never let them take Missy anywhere again!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They’d just have to come up with another way to attract women!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>By the way, they are all three happily married
now, so I guess they figured it out.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And Missy, well she died many years later of cancer, but only after having a very happy and adventurous life full of love and adoration!!</FONT></P>
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<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman">Hugs, kisses and Drool to all of the sick hounds out there….and my sincere condolences to those who have lost their babies.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I know how terribly hard it is, they are looking down wanting us to be happy and know that even though their time with us was short….they know they were lucky to be loved and cherished by someone!!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>However, as it turns out, we were the lucky to have loved them!!</FONT></P>
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<P><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">CeAnne (Lucky Mom to wonderful Jack and Emma)</FONT></P>
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