<html><body><span style="font-family:Verdana; color:#000000; font-size:10pt;"><div>Bev and Sara both add salient points to this discussion. Fortunately, there are therapy options in the right combination that can and do effect behavioral improvement. It often isn't easy, quick, or simple, but the other 'option'...sending "Cujo" to the Bridge early isn't easy or simple either. The hard part is knowing that love, time, effort, and rigor can and usually does pay off. There are, and will be, cases when helping the dog to the Bridge is the most humane option; for that, I rely on the expertise of a Veterinarian.</div><div><br></div><div>One of mine, Roscoe, pulled from a rural southeastern Ohio kill pound before I joined BROOD, had a tendency for fear biting. Keeping it in check by long-term lay behavioral modification meant I had to exclude him from public events with children or rambles/waddles, even if he never bit a child or other adult that I knew of. I now believe finding the right mix of pharmacology and competent behavioralist therapy probably would have made things simpler and more effective. Roscoe lived being loved at home until he died at 12. That's probably long enough ago that the Juris Doctors won't be after me for his issues on contingency. Hoping that litigators here in the sticks weren't as smart as their pricier urban counterparts wasn't much solace.</div><div><br></div><div>Two- or four-legger, we are talking about the complexity of the brain. Some of us get befuddled over setting TiVO. That's far harder and more complex than making a killer Margarita or perfect Manhattan. I can and regularly do that in my "Wildlife Management" calling.</div><div><br></div><div>Fortunately, if you're on this list, you love your Basset. There are effective treatments out there in the vast majority of cases. That love, and the unconditional love of your drooler in return, can carry both of you through, even if the road ahead is long, frustrating, and sometimes difficult.</div><div><br></div><div>Maybe I should not mention euthanasia as an option; the health insurers and their afterbirth, the 'Health Mangling Organizations' might try that on us, rather than having to work to avoid paying for mental health related claims.</div><div><br></div><div> Charlie</div><div><br></div><div>P.S.: Bev, it wasn't reassuring when my new Family Practitioner astonishingly replied long ago: "I can't write that much Prozac!" There were many times, though, when drool trumped BigPharm.</div></span></body></html>