Basset Notes

The following are some of the notes we've received from the many kind people who have stopped by and joined the pack.

Basset Home Page | Letters to the Den

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xpecting our first human child. Our first born, Chelsea the Basset Hound, already knows something is up.

Are there any other human parents to be that are having trouble with there first born?

Nice to find a home-page with info on adoption

Keep up the good job!! Schiffee@aol.com

Oscar Mayer, my basset, is coming into his 11th year and slowing down a little. He's the third basset I've owned and each one has given me many wonderful stories and memories. I often say it takes special people to own and understand bassets. A friend of mine was teasing me about the intelligence test for dogs that was on tv. The basset finished last. I told her that if a basset hound owner had devised the testing parameters the basset would have been first. Obviouly, the basset was not interested in the events that a "normal" dog would be.

I love your page and plan to visit often.

LT

I took my basset to the vet about 6 months ago for what I think was a interdigital cyst. The vet said it looked like a bug bite or tumour. We wrapped up her foot and with time it disapeered. It has come back. I wondered if there was prevention and treatment you might know of. My basset licks this cyst until it is swollen and red.

Please help! Thanks.

Dear Basset,

I am writing to let you know that I am an avid Basset Hound lover. I had a Basset but she died a couple years ago. I loved her so much. Right now I am trying to get another one but my parents are not cooperating. The are the sweetest dogs around. I really miss my Penny!!

Stacey

Bassets are great fun, I have chelsay a 4 year old female. As log as she gets her 21 hours of sleep a day she's happy. People are missing out in a loyal wonderful pet. My question is do basset's normally have weak backs, seems like mine has back problems about twice a year.

When I lived in LA the local Basset Hound Club, in addition to a wild picnic every year, ran a Save A Hound From The Pound Group. Living in Northern Michigan I found that I can just let the local animal shelters know that if a Basset comes in they are to call immediately. Actually, in our very small community, I am not the first on our local list.

Moses is very short and would really like the two feet of snow to go away...parts of his body are VERY cold! This is a wonderful site although my husband could not believe I found it.

Hi!

I am Josephine's owner, Deb. She is a 3 year old tri-color basset with a very crooked front leg and she is a big girl weighing in at 55 lbs. Her brother, a 9 year old cocker spaniel named Drooper, thinks she is the prettiest girl on the block...and Josephine makes sure that Drooper always knows who is boss...the Queen I meant to say...

We enjoy the Basset's Den...

DEB

FRED is a north dakota bassett hound. he is huge and he is purebred! e-mail me at gmilano@minot.com

I've been on the internet for some time, but I just found your homepage today!! It's fantastic!! I think one of the best parts about it is seeing that others have very similar problems and experiences with their bassets as we have - kind of takes the exasperation out of some of it and makes me laugh.

My husband and I finally decided to get a dog about 4 years ago and we both wouldn't even think of getting anything but a basset hound, not that either of us had ever had one, but because they were so adorable! So off we went to PAWS to see if they had any bassets that day and wouldn't you know it, the first kennel we looked in there was a basset hound and he immediately howled up at us obviously telling us to get him out of there. He was a 3 1/2 year old whose family had given him up for various reasons. Well, we couldn't resist and he really seemed eager to get out of there (I should have realized right then and there that our reign as "heads of household" were OVER), so we adopted him on the spot and away we went!

The next morning, I got up early and decided to take Rusty (a slight revision to his former name) for a walk. We walked down to the park and all of the sudden Rusty started pulling with everything he had on that leash, so I let him take the lead and he takes me behind a tree where there is another basset hound standing there and wagging his tail. I assumed his owner was somewhere in park and so we kept walking....he followed....and followed....and followed us straight home and into the back yard where I shut the gate and went in to wake up my husband to show him our houseguest.

My husband was convinced that I had opened a gate somewhere and led this other hound home, but two basset hounds in less than 24 hours was not exactly my idea of fun! So Jeff (my husband) took the new dog and walked the neighborhood. The dog did indeed go running up to door after door, Jeff would knock, tell the residents that he found their dog and they would just look at him blankly and say, "that's not our dog". So it was becoming evident that this dog was not from the immediate area. We thought about taking him to PAWS, but we decided that someone would indeed be looking for this creature, so we would hold on to him until his owner showed. We called and put him in the national computer and posted signs. For the first two weeks we prayed that someone would come to claim him, because he was quite a handful. The hounds had completely taken over, getting up on the furniture, sleeping on the bed, whining and crying whenever we even went into the bathroom and shut the door! In spite of all this, however, we quickly grew very fond of them both and in about the third week, we thought about keeping him....and so we did. His name is Sam. (By the way, there was never even one call about him).

Once we got past the first six months or so dealing with experience after experience of runaway hounds (like the time I chased Rusty a mile down a sandy beach and finally had to tackle him, or when Sam showed up in the driveway one afternoon riding in the passenger seat of a Lexus after he had gotten under the fence) life became a little easier, but not necessarily predictable!

Four years later we consider ourselves veterans at being owned by dogs and have decided that Sam is the most stubborn creature there is. But just as Jeff and I feel like we're at the end of our rope with him, he does something so goofy that you can't help but roar with laughter. The other dog, Rusty, turned out to be surprisingly smart and incredibly loveable.

I wouldn't recommend basset hound ownership to everyone, but we're certainly glad to be doing it!!

Keep up the good work on the homepage!!

Elias and Hella live at the country home of the Consul of Finland in Alberta together with Paddington, the Bouvier and 3 cats (Kissan, Muggins & Bridie). Elias rules the roost even though Paddington is twice as large. The presence of coyotes, moose and deer provide the bassetts an opportunity to exercise their vocal cords! Often at sunset the combined voices of coyotes & bassetts provide the opening of what we call the "Athabasca Symphony" (We live in the County of Athabasca) Elias and Hella are looking forward to meeting Bullet (also from the Feb. mail) as I'm certain that they will enjoy each other's company.

Hello Michelle and I (Marc) have just put our basset on the web...Oliver Montana Barney.

HTTP://pages.prodigy.com/OLIVER/oli.htm

If you want any more info or photo's just let me know....bye for now.

Hello, I visit various basset sites frequently, including yours. I have recently started my own page and have included a link to yours. I was wondering if you would like to take a look at it and make a link on your page to mine, as it would be greatly appreciated. My address is http://www.usinternet.com/users/dbasch

Thanks...Doug

I am the owner of a 3-year old Basset/Beagle mix named Bogart. I think Basset Hounds are SUCH GREAT dogs, and I Love the pictures on your web site.

Awsome Job.

This is my first time on the web, as well as my first search, so please excuse any errors in this transmission. I love to talk about my basset, as well as the three that I grew up with. I grew up primarily with Henry, Humphrey and Barnaby. My finace and I sought out our first puppy together last spring, and of course there was no other breed than the basset, (despite the fact that he had grown up with schnouzers (sp) and a mini poodle. Oliver is now a year and a half and lives right my Fenway Park in Boston, MA. He is dying to get into one of those games because the smell of those hot dogs and sausages drive him crazy during the summer!! Despite the fact that he lives downtown, Oliver came from uptown, from the very prestigous Newbury Street. He was purchased from a pet store (gasp). But the story is that I used to go in and look at the puppies a couple times a week, and this poor little thing was always there. At three months he was too old to be in those cages, so I caved and bought him. Despite his exorbitant price, we believe he is the runt of the litter. Of believe is grounded becuase of the following: we can free feed him, but he has little ionterest in (dog) food, and he does not have a weight problem and plays with rottweilers and dobermen. He obviously does not believe he is the hound he is.

Anyways, Oliver may be the most active dog in the neighborhood. This is becuase when he was a puppy, I was in the midsts of my first year of law school, while Howard was going to school for his MBA. We used to take him out a million times a day, so that he would be tired and sleep so that we could study. But the plan backfired and we have the most in shape dog around. Now he expects the exercise!!

Oliver is tricolored, but weighs only 42 lbs., so he's a small male. I hope that I can chat with other basset owners, and ask them questions about training...if there exists any for our beloved breed. my email address is oligoober@aol.com. You might have noticed that our email name is connected to Oliver and his goobers!!!

As I write this, Oliver, our one year and a half old male Basset, is whining over my shoulder. You see, Oliver doesn't like anything that diverts attention away from himself. He has mastered the art of whining, much to our dismay. Despite this, we are madly in love with Ollie. He lives right by Fenway Park, in Boston, so I guess you would consider him a city dog. In fact, we believed that a basset would be the ideal dog to get for our tiny apartment becuase they don't mind a little relaxation every now and then. But our plan backfired because when Ollie was growing up we took him outside so much that he was in tip top shape! Now he whines whenever we miss any of those walks. Bassets are truely creatures of habit. An example of this is the bedroom. When we moved into our first one bedroom this fall, Oliver dicovered how much softer the new bed was in comparison to his futon. He has hogged it ever sinse. But I must admitt he is just a tad bit cuddlier than my finace! I would love to chat about bassets and any training tips you might have for dealing with this whining thing. Some people would suggest stop spoiling him so much, but from one basset owner to another, is that really possible? My email address is oligoober@aol.com. Notice any connection to my dog?

I am interested in adopting a male basset. Currently, I have a female named "Daffy". She is between 5 to 8 years old, and would like some company to goofoff with.

Thanks,

Michael S. Taxin
mike_t@earthlink.net

Other E-Mail Addresses:
miket32390@aol.com
71233,65@compuserve.com

Love The Basset's Den. I don't know if this is the sort of mail you can post ... but Bella, my 7-year-old tricolour is looking for an adopted sister ... younger, preferably, and also spayed. If anyone knows of such a dog available here in southern Ontario (Bella lives in Guelph), could they e-mail me? Thanks!

Muriel Fiona Napier and Bella.

s named Gordon but we call him Gordo for short. He is very stubborn but really cute. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 96
Just wanted to thank all those people out there with leads on getting another basset. Although I originally set about getting a puppy - I am now almost fully converted to getting a rescue. I am looking for a tri-colour female - basic requirements - long ears and lots of drool and that "look" that only bassets have. I have one now that's 4 years old and desperately want another - preferably a 'youngish' one or puppy - however - one look at any of them will suffice to win me over. Willing to travel some distance to get (rescue her). Have a fenced in front & back garden and the dog(s) join and stay with me at the office - where they are the centre of attention with all my clients. We have daily 'before work' walks along the lake and lots of TLC. I live in Toronto, Canada but have connections in the USA. Please contact me through E-mail at DoingThings@MSN.COM. Regards and a good howl from Jennie Basset & her MOM - Ernestine.

Date: Sun, 18 Feb
Hi. I am looking for a Basset puppy (although I would adopt if possible a rescued basset) I would like a tri-colour female. If you know of any or who might have a youngish tri-colour female Basset for adoption please E-mail me at DoingThings@MSN.COM I already have joint custody of a 4 year old female tri-colour which I adopted as a puppy. I would like to get another one as soon as possible. Hope some one out there in Basset land can help me locate one. Ernestine

Date: Sat, 17 Feb 96
Hi: I am another basset nut and love to read your pages. I own (or at present have joint custody) a female tri-coloured basset named Jennie. I adopted her 4 years ago this month when she was 3 months old and she is without doubt one of the most beautifull bassets around. She is sweet and so loveable and full of crazy antics. She is a bed-hog and has a penchant for TV remote controls. She has a peculiar ailment we'll call 'selective deafness' but on the whole she is just great. I would like to get another basset hound puppy - tri-colour female - however, when I hear the sad story of some of the abandoned and mistreated basetts up for adoption I am beginning to lean more in that direction. If any one has a young bassett or a puppy please E-mail me at DoingThings@msn.com. Jennie would love to have a playmate - I have a nice fenced garden and we walk everymorning along the lake before going to work - yes, Jennie goes with me to the office as well. She's a real hit with them. Keep up the good work.

Ernestine

Great to see that basset hounds are represented on-line. I have had 6 bassets in the last 25 years. They are an ideal pet. I now have an 11 year old female named Ximena. She's been a wonderful pet and friend. She's pretty old for a basset hound. For some reason, it seems that bassets don't live to a very old age. I wouldn't have any other pet.

Maryland has a basset hound society.

Hi i'm from N.C. I would like to say great home page I own a basset or maybe I should say he owns me .His full name is Bernard Stonewall Jackson he's all red and a spoiled dog but we love him.

Hello from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, home of the -40 C winters!

Our basset, Patches, is of the French flavour. She enjoys basking in the sun during the summer. Sometimes she'll jump up on the picnic table and just lie there for hours.

In the winter, she likes to find a spot where the sun's ray's are shining and lie there to sleep.

She enjoys gathering all the rawhide bones in the house and carrying them all at once in her mouth. She'll find a spot away from our other dog, Buddy (American Cocker), and she'll eat all the rawhides herself. I may have to get a part time job to support her expensive habit.

She also enjoys playing soccer. She grabs a squeaky toy or a sock in her mouth, and then she kicks the ball toys around and chases them. It's quite amusing to watch.

She likes to talk... and talk... and talk... and talk... and talk ..., well, you get the picture!!!

I just found your website today and thought it was really neat. One day, maybe I can e-mail a picture of Patches and have it immortalized in your gallery. Until later, keep up the excellent work!!!

BASSETMANIA by Wendy L. Forman

I'm not certain when I actually made the decision to let my house go to the dogs; it was probably an incremental process which began in a small way with the introduction of Lady Dahlia Prenderby into our heretofore canine-impoverished existence. I had been the chief and only impediment to our getting a dog; my husband had grown up with one and had been lobbying for a pooch forever. Of course the kids loved the idea; however, I was still a bit overwhelmed by their custodial care, to say nothing of fitting in my job and basic household maintenance, so I just kept repeating "No dog, no dog,no dog" as my personal mantra whenever the subject arose.

As luck would have it, I got a little tipsy one evening while we were visiting friends and with the bravado borne of an altered state of consciousness I made the ridiculous public announcement that if I were to call the SPCA the next day and they had a full-blooded Basset hound on the premises, then, and only then, would we get a dog. Otherwise, the subject had to be closed , never to be brought up again. My husband, while slightly bewildered by the specific terms of this treaty, knew enough to go along with it. As I was holding forth to the gang, I explained that as a young child I adored the wise-cracking Basset named Cleo on the TV show called "The People's Choice" and I'd decided then that if I ever did get a dog, it would have to be one just like her. I did rescind the demand that this SPCA special would also have to possess the capacity to have her innermost thoughts articulated by a sonorous disembodied voice in the manner of Cleo; however, it was with difficulty that I decided to waive that point!

With my husband as my shadow on the following day, I dialed the number of the animal shelter with trepidation and a little giddiness. Surely I had covered myself by virtue of the specificity of my terms; nevertheless, within five minutes we were speeding over to the SPCA to meet a rather ample female Basset whose dolorous demeanor put even Cleo to shame. ("She just came in today, M'am. A runaway , I think.") In approximately five minutes we were walking out with a shockingly malodorous hound with whom I had fallen madly and unconditionally in love at first sight.

The kids loved the beast immediately; in fact, our son, replying to the query"What makes a happy family?" answered without hesitation, "Having a dog". Dahlia,named after Bertie Wooster's aunt from the P.G.Wodehouse stories, was wonderfully well-behaved for a Basset hound; she only shit and pissed in the house about two or three times a week and was only occasionally found sun-bathing on the yellow line in the middle of our street. No matter how often she was bathed or groomed, she really stunk to high heaven and the smell settled into our home for good. All of this was a small price to pay for the joy she bestowed upon us and it was a sad day indeed when she died and we buried her in our back yard.

After the tender funeral, we had a somber family meeting during which I carefully explained to the assembled (as I often counsel families who've experienced the death of a pet) that it is essential that we grieve Dahlia's passing completely and that we not rush out and try to replace her with a poor substitute. Everyone agreed on the psychological and practical merits of this idea and we all had another good group cry, then returned to our regular lives. It was, therefore, a great shock to me when I found myself less than three days later in a dazed and confused state, dragging my husband to an animal shelter in the next county. I had been making some calls and had discovered that there was an adult female Basset in Conshohocken just waiting for us to come and get her.

Mississippi was not a very fetching , but she was okay , although she seemed to have a slightly agitated manner uncommon to her breed and a rather strong voice. Since we were there anyway and had a little time to kill, we wandered around looking into the other cages until I stopped short in front of a truly gigantic St. Bernard and decided that we absolutely had to have him instead. David looked at me quizzically but held his tongue as I importuned the attendant to let us have this creature instead of the dyspeptic Basset, but she demurred, stating that the Saint had some sort of opthamological problem and they couldn't adopt him out until he saw the vet. Being constitutionally unable to leave the shelter with empty arms, I reached out reluctantly for Mississippi and we sped home.

We immediately renamed her Lady Madeline Basset, who was the daughter of Sir Watkin Basset in one of our favorite Wodehouse pieces. I figured it was simply an adjustment issue that caused the dog to bay without stopping for breath from Montgomery County to the Bucks County line. Madeline seemed to have some chronic problems with separation anxiety; as soon as she settled in to our home she began carrying on whenever anyone walked out of the house. When the kids left for school the next morning, she barked and cried uncontrollably for forty-five minutes, after which she herself slipped out the door and ran away. If I had had an ounce of sense remaining in my grief-afflicted brain, I'd have let her keep on going, but some sort of misguided responsibility compelled me to run after her, shouting at her to come home and condemning her loudly for being an ingrate. When I lured her back into the house I noticed that she had the adorable habit of jumping up on the chair, the sofa and even my bed and making herself at home; she was impervious to my insistence that she get down immediately and in fact mocked me with her surly defiant demeanor.

Within two days I despised this canine totally and spent one whole morning polling many of my friends and relatives, asking them to rate on a scale of one to ten exactly how terrible a person I would be if I returned this vile creature to death row. The consensus was that it was going to be either the dog or me and after over a decade in the house, I hoped I had the right of eminent domain. At first, the kids were unsure of their choice and led me to believe that I should think about packing my bags; however, as we were all watching a good TV show that night Lady Madeline barked without surcease throughout the program, including ads, and the kids' lukewarm loyalty to this interloper quickly dissipated.

The shelter we brought her to took a dim view of our fickle family, but indicated that certainly other people (of stronger character and more integrity, I suppose) would be happy to adopt such a fine specimen of the breed and so we walked away without regrets. Unfortunately, this made us persona non grata and pretty much invalidated our chances of getting another dog from them until the day after hell freezes over. This gave us two options, neither of which I found attractive; we could go dogless or we could (and this caused some consternation on my part) BUY A PUPPY! I had adored Dahlia, who was sort of middle-aged and like a friend to me, but having a puppy was akin to having a baby and I had come to enjoy being able to sleep through the night and being able to leave tasks such as toilet training well behind me.

Naturally I chose the one in the litter with the longest ears, the sorriest expression, and the liveliest disposition! We had been casually perusing the classified ads when we came upon the phone number of a woman in Northeast Philly who raised Bassets in her backyard and we made a beeline over there so we could choose the pick of the litter. All of my concerns about puppy-rearing evaporated and we happily handed over the money to the breeder who actually cried as she bade the little beast goodbye. Her parting words were imparted in a high-pitched pleading tone."She likes softly scrambled eggs for her breakfast; please take good care of her."

Having regrettably used up our best Wodehouse name on the miscreant Mississippi /Madeline, we carried on a marathon family brainstorming session lasting for over a week during which we thought up and rejected upwards of a hundred names. Jane Ear and Olivia Newton-Hound made it into the finals, but the winning name for our precious little puppy was Lady Maude Lynne Basset. And maudlin she was, with her droopy lachrymous eyes and her wrinkled worry brow. We were enchanted as we watched her step on her ears as she walked; we were less than enchanted as we realized that she chewed everything that wasn't nailed down, including all of Abe's schoolbooks AND his homework one fateful night. The teacher was so moved by the creative note of explanation that we sent to school the next day that she didn't even make us pay for the damage; I was perversely pleased that I had gotten an opportunity to write an epistle of "the dog ate my homework" genre that I grudgingly forgave the baby hound her transgression and we learned to put everything up off the floor.

Before we knew it, our adorable baby had turned into fifty pounds of too too solid flesh; it transpired that she was not of the petite variety of the breed and furthermore she seemed to have some sort of compulsive eating disorder and could not be trusted around anything edible.She wasn't terribly particular and once I noticed something alarming -looking in her stool; it turned out to be one of David's navy blue socks which emerged intact after the trip through Maude's cast-iron gut. Until we learned to put all of our food in the middle of the table we would often discover that a sandwich or an entire dinner had been dragged down and inhaled by her during the few seconds it took us to bring a salt shaker to the table.

After a few years Maudie settled down and we learned to live with her remaining idiosyncrasies. I don't know who started the campaign to find a pal for her (she actually didn't seem to mind being an only dog), but all of a sudden the idea of a second Basset began to sound rational, sane. We interviewed one young male who was being given away because he had the tragic flaw of excessive slobbering; his fastidious owner brought him to visit and followed around after him with a washrag, daubing at his saliva every few seconds. I don't know why, but I figured we could learn to live with the waterworks;however, the match was clearly not meant to be since Maude became overly-assertive with the poor thing and left him cowering and sniveling under our piano bench. We bade him and his disappointed owner farewell, and nary a word was spoken about a pal dog for a long time.

Eventually, though, fate stepped in and dealt us a wild card. David had taken Maude for a walk into town and while he was picking up a few items at the general store, a stranger strode in and asked for the owner of the Basset hound parked outside. David confessed, waiting to hear that Maude had purloined the guy's ice cream cone, but the man had no complaint to lodge. He merely wanted to tell David that he was moving in with his lover and their new dwelling forbade pets so he was searching for just the right home for his wonderful, good as gold paragon of a Basset hound. Surely our family would be the perfect adoptive home for his precious pet.

He answered all of our questions in a suave and reassuring manner, offering occasional endorsements such as the statement that he could leave her at home alone for twelve hours or more and she would calmly await his return, his house unspoiled and unsoiled in his absence.

To this day we cannot explain our open-hearted trust of this smooth-talking stranger; nevertheless, we agreed to adopt his pet and treat her as if she were our very own birth-dog. It did seem a little strange that when he handed her over to, placing her brown leash in our willing hands, the creature trotted off happily with us without so much as a backward glance at her former master, who was busy feigning tears at this parting.

She came with the name Sadie which suited us just fine, but not too much time elapsed before we realized with a stunning sort of clarity that she would be better served with the moniker Satan. Maude, although twice her size, gave into the interloper's dominance immediately. Sadie proceeded to teach her new sister bad habits that Maude had never even dreamed of and I would estimate that the entire process of corruption took less than a week. Suddenly we had two dogs defying all barriers, lolling around on our sofa and good chairs as if they paid the mortgage around here. The story of Sadie's ability to remain calm and continent for upwards of twelve hours had been a trifle hyperbolic; in fact, after merely half a day away, we would be greeted with shit and piss all over, and the floor littered with the detritus remaining from the bags, boxes and bundles which she had plundered, eaten and destroyed in our absence.And like any good psychopath, Sadie possesses an enormous amount of charm and so, despite her evil influence on her sidekick and despite her unfortunate personal habits, we have all come to love her and view her behavior amusing instead of criminal.

Once I acknowledged my powerlessness over the Bassets, I gave up my last lingering hope of a having a nice normal house and discovered that I actually enjoy the freedom of living in a house that has gone to the dogs. I am eagerly anticipating becoming, in my twilight years, a true eccentric like one of those slightly dotty British women of a certain age going on about their lit-tle dog-gies who keep them company as they take their brisk walks or as they take their tea by the fireplace in their country cottages. And unless it was an auditory hallucination, I believe I heard my husband whispering something about one of these days getting a third Basset. I say, pass me my Wellies and my walking stick; things are looking up!

G'day, We have been reading The Basset Page for a few months now, and are thrilled to find that we are not the only ones who talk about and treat our "Banjo Basset" like our baby. Banjo is a ten month old tri-colour male, and we believe him to be the first "Aussie Basset" to be gracing your page. Please let us know if this is not correct.

We live in the far north Queensland City of Cairns, where Bassets are few and far between. If we are not informing passers by of his breed, we are constantly informing them that his name is NOT Fred. I'm sure plenty of your reader/owners have similar experiences. We enjoyed downloading and listening to Rusty, it sounded so familiar.

Thanks for such a great Web Page, keep up the great work.

Andrea, Andrew and Banjo Wright

Hi, I love your Basset page. I have a Basset (Priscilla Sue) who would like to have her picture displayed on your page or in your gallery. I scanned her picture as a GIF, so if this is at all possible, tell me if I could e-mail it to you. Thanks!

Is there such a thing as a brisk walk with a Bassett? Well, yes, but not necessarily the kind you want. Sam, one of our Bassetts who has since passed away, loved a good run, and could outrun us when the urge came upon him - it usually came upon him in unusual circumstances, like the time we were taking an illegal stroll across a dairy ranch in Northern California, and he spied a bunch of cows he felt the need to herd and he chased them for what seemed like a couple of miles, with us frantically screaming and chasing him over rocks and gullies, expecting a rancher with a shotgun to appear at any moment. That ended happily, with Sam and his halfsister Sadie, who behaved herself admirably during all of this, back on our porch, gnawing on giant cowbones we collected on our walk, their legs streched out behind them in true Bassett fashion.

Sam's other memorable brisk walk took place in the Sierra Nevadas, after my husband and I (and Sam) had hiked about 2000 feet up a switchback trail of trees, boulders, streams. Sam was fine until he saw a squirrel and decided to chase it all the way back down the trail. We caught up with him at the bottom, and needless to say, we did not go back up so never got to our final destination. Sam was quite happy with himself though and completely ignored our complaining to him.

Sadie, on the other hand, was on the chubby side, so had the opposite problem. Walking back from Pinecrest Lake to our cabin one day, about a quarter of a mile, she decided she could no longer move at the eighth of a mile per hour rate she normally liked, and just sat down, in the middle of the road, and would not move for cars, people, love or money. My husband had to carry her the final distance.

Madeleine, our third Bassett, loved a brisk walk, although she had a thing about disappearing into other people's yards or under their houses. Her favorite thing about a walk was taking off in the snow and getting stuck up to her belly in a snowdrift. I can only imagine her legs trying to paddle underneath the snow. Again, my husband would come to the rescue. I think one of his main functions is to rescue Bassett hounds and carry their fat little bodies out of predicaments.

HELLO,

I have just now found your bassett home page, and i love it. We just lost our Charly B. She was a great friend and help to get our three kids past the baby stage. We are checking into the Bassett Rescue here in Colorado and hope to find another hound to love. I'm anxious to read about other peoples Bassetts, they sure are wonderful

Tomorrow our new basset arrives at 4:40 pm on a flight from Alberta. We more or less bought her "sight unseen" but we are nearly unable to contain the anticipation. Since this is our first Basset, it's nice to see a homepage dedicated to the breed. We wish you success.

Dave & Claire in Victoria, bc.

We discovered your page on the Web this mourning. We are in a very bad way because we had to put down our very dear friend Zack yesterday we had him for 9 wonderfull years he brought a tremdour amount of joy to our lives and has left a great void that we must try to fill . We are searching today for possible places to find a new friend. We live in upstate New York. Anyone reading this thats knows of any breaders up this way please e-mail us at JEttore@aol.com. I really enjoy your site and will visit it often now that I know it is here.

We too are owned by a basset hound. "Stephanie" is a four and one-half year old basset. She is the queen of the couch potatoes and get quite grumpy when you sit in her spot. She rides in the front seat of the car...always. The kids sit in the back seat or she sits on their lap. We look pretty comical driving through town. Bassets are special dogs that require special owners, not everyone can be a basset owner. Bassets may be a little stubborn at times, but shouldn't be considered lazy, they just have different priorities that others. If we had more room, we would have more bassets. They are the best dogs. I love your homepage, it is the first thing I pull up on the internet. I would love to hear from other basset owners.

Barb Bates
Casper, Wyoming

This is just a short note to introduce you to Bullet, our bassett hound born on Sept. 5, 1994. We still marvel at the amount of attention that he receives when we take him out for walks or on road trips to the Rocky Mountains. He's a good, quick hiker and is also a volunteer twice monthly for pet therapy at a seniors extended care home. He seems to understand that he has to behave when he visits the elderly residents, and has many alzheimer patients chatting about their favorite old pets. Its' a joy for both Bullet and myself to volunteer in this fashion.

Hi. I just discovered the internet. I looked up basset hounds and found that i'm not the only one who is crazy about them. :)

We got our first Basset Hound in 1983. He was a birthday present for my husband. We named him Buddy and that's exactly what he turned out to be. His official "AKC" name was "La Ears de Floor". Someone stole him from our backyard in 1988. This broke my husband's heart because Buddy was his best friend.

In 1985, we got a female basset hound we called Maggie. Her official name was "Bagnolia Blossom". (we live in Louisiana). We still have her. She is 11 years old now. She is the most well behaved one of our little herd o' four-legged friends.

In 1988, we got another female basset on Valentines Day. We call her Bonnie. Her official name is Bonnie Blue Eye because she has one blue eye. She is a beautiful Basset Hound, and is the alpha dog. She has to get her cookie first or else she won't eat it. The other dogs have to wait until she eats then they can eat. Sometimes even if she's not hungry, she will lay in front of the bowl of dog food just so the others can't eat until she decides to let them.

In 1990, I saw an ad for a lost Basset female. Someone had found Her in a shopping center parking lot and she was pregnant. They took her home and there she gave birth to a bunch of mixed breed puppies. The lady told me that no one had answered her ad and claimed her and if I wanted her to wait until the puppies were old enough for her could leave them and I could have her. So I waited and called her back a couple of weeks later, no one had claimed her so I drove across the lake and went to her house and when I saw the dog with a rope around her neck and tied to a tree with a litter of puppies around her I almost died. I took one look at that face and I said i'll take her. I didn't tell my husband anything about my calls to this lady and the possibility of getting another dog. So on way home (40 miles) I was thinking what is my husband going to say. But I kept looking in the back seat at the poor dog and said well he'll love her too. She was skin and bones, was filthy and obviously was the runt of the litter. She was a very small Basset Hound. so I get home and bring her in the house and my husband was just as happy as I was. We put her in the tub and got her cleaned up and took her to the vet the next day. She had heartworms, hookworms, roundworms and ringworms and a liver deficiency. We got her treatment for all the worms and took care of the liver deficiency and got her spayed. She has been the sweetest dog. She is obedient and quiet and loves to snuggle. we call her Annie (Little Orphan Annie).

Then in October of 1994, I went to the vet to pick up some medicine for the dogs and the receptionist told me they found a Basset Hound, did I want another one. I said no but I wanted to see her. Well need I say more. She looked more like a Beagle. So we call her a Beagle, a very chubby Beagle. We call her Gypsy. About two weeks after we got her we noticed her stomach getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. I took her to the vet and guess what, i'm gonna be a mom. I had never had a dog give birth before because all of our dogs were fixed. Well on the day before Thanksgiving I got to see the most amazing thing. The birth of 11 puppies in my closet. It was beautiful. Gypsy was a great mom. she did everything herself and we didn't see any blood or anything. She took care of the puppies so well. But when they were 6 weeks old she had had it. We gave all the puppies away and have since had her treated for heartworms etc and had her spayed. She is the light of my life. She is so playful andfun-loving. She has pretty much taken over. Her and Bonnie get into a scuffle once in a while but they pretty much get along.

I love all my dogs and wouldn't give them up for a million dollars.

Kay DuBourg