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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>It’s hard to remember. Hard to look back in the mists of time and nail down a specific date. I can say I’ve been in the greater drool family for about 20 years, maybe more. I know there’s a saved email in my computer from 2003 from when I signed up for a Drool Auction, so that’s as good a guess as any. When I saw that, I also saw a membership for Beethoven (my first basset mix) in the SitterUppers club (Bernie, you still out there?) and Maggie was accepted into the OEBE not long after.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I found the drool because I was about ready to murder Maggie d’Earest. No, I am not exaggerating. That dog was driving me NUTS. She tore up everything. I have door frames and kitchen cabinets and carpets that still have her destructive teeth marks. In fact, even the brick fireplace hearth has teeth marks. BRICK! Wow, what a horrible dog. And it wasn’t puppy stuff – she was already an adult when I got her. Turns out it was basically separation anxiety, times 10. Or maybe even times 100. And I’d never heard of “crate training”. The dogs I grew up with didn’t have any sort of “issues”. Mutts mostly…certainly nothing remotely like a basset. And the other dogs I’d had as an adult had been shelties - no behavior problems with them, ever.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>So in addition to the separation anxiety, Maggie was also food aggressive. And food excessive! One time she chewed clear through the wood cabinet in the utility room trying to get to the bag of dog food on the other side of the wall. Another time she DID get to the bag of dog food, and ate about 20 pounds of kibble. Then pooped it out all over the house ‘cause she had filled her belly so full she couldn’t get out the dog door. Maggie taught me that food goes in heavy plastic containers with screw down lids (she could open anything else). And trash cans went in cabinets with locking doors. Boy, what a girl. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The Drool helped me through those two issues, plus educated me on bloat. Yes, Maggie did that too. She was a survivor, for sure. Because she didn’t get much help from me. It was days after her first bloat episode that I finally realized that what she’d just been through could have killed her! (Talk about clueless…) But I learned, and she mellowed, and I had her for 12 of her 14 years before she left me, broken and in tears. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I had two dogs when I got Maggie, so there was a full pack here (one was a sheltie, the other a very long-lived basset / Shar-Pei mix.) And when the first two passed, Maggie was alone, and lonely, so I rescued Leia Round (Oregon Basset Rescue), followed by getting Dexter off a Craigs List ad…someone wanted to re-home him. He was still a puppy, and as a typical basset puppy, he was more than a “normal” family could handle. In a year, Maggie had left, and not too long after that Leia Round passed unexpectedly. So I add Red, a handsome reddish boy from Happy Paws rescue, an all-breed multi-animal group in Yuba City. Red immediately received a name change – Red was too short a name for such a long dog, so he was christened Reginald, typically called Reggie unless he’s barking at the birds or flowers (or even just the wind blowing) in the back yard.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>So the two dogs I’m sharing my Dawg Haus with now are both around 10. Reggie has bouts with back trouble, but is really very healthy otherwise. Dexter has been hard on the budget though. Dental work. Lump removals – almost lost his tail to an abscessed lump. (I don’t take lumps off unless they are broken open or so large that they are at risk.) Skin issues. Most recently an emergency surgery to remove a ruptured spleen and three cysts from his gut. Ten years old, five surgeries. But the little love bug is worth every penny spent. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Anyone who remembers me knows I write long memorials. And (obviously) long posts about my dogs in general. And this is just another one of those. Because there’s nothing I love more than my bassets, and talking about them with my friends.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Tempus Sans ITC";color:black'>Tim’s Dawg Haus<o:p></o:p></span></p><ul style='margin-top:0in' type=disc><li class=MsoListParagraph style='color:black;margin-left:-15.0pt;mso-list:l2 level1 lfo3'><span style='color:windowtext'>Dexter Dawg</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Tempus Sans ITC"'><o:p></o:p></span></li><li class=MsoListParagraph style='margin-left:-15.0pt;mso-list:l2 level1 lfo3'>Reginald Dawg<o:p></o:p></li></ul></div></body></html>