I see that many of our blog followers enjoyed the sexy basset spread the other day! We were glad to see so many people happy to check out our hounds, especially our rescued hounds. However it almost didn't happen! I was just getting ready to blog that night when a terrible thing happened to me!
I went out in the yard to do my business so I had no interruption while blogging about all our sexy hounds. I was so excited about that blog that I had to romp and run around the yard. Well, I stepped on something hard and knobby and it really hurt. I stopped immediately so I could inspect my paw and make sure it was OK, and I realized that whatever it was had stuck in my foot! I wasn't happy, because it was my bad foot on top of it all. So I slowly limped back to the house, worried that my injury would prevent me from honoring our sexy hounds. Rosco and Breezy had already got inside, and daddy was hollering for me to hurry up (he is so impatient sometimes!). I finally got in and daddy realized I had hurt my paw. I bet he felt bad for rushing me. He better have.
I was so worried at that point, because beautiful hounds like me don't like to be laid up waiting for their paw to heal. I certainly did not want to visit the vet again, after my last two experiences. So I laid on my back so daddy could check on my foot and fix it and hopefully rub my belly afterwards. Well, I may not have mentioned it before but daddy is a doctor. He's not a vet kind of doctor though, he studied lizards or some silly thing - this was all before my gotcha day so I don't know the details, Rosco can tell you sometime - but he knows enough to fix feet I guess, because he pulled the thing out. Then he showed it to me and said 'Layla this is a sweetgum ball, they come off trees. Mama and I hate these things.' Well I hate them too, I'm the one that had it in her paw!
The culprit fruiting body
So I decided to educate myself so I know how to avoid that problem in the future. It turns out sweetgum balls are horrible things and sweetgum trees are hateful, terrible plants that exist to drop stupid little spiky balls all over a hound's yard and make it nearly uninhabitable. A sweetgum tree can drop lots of these stupid little things! And they persist for a long time. Daddy explained to me that he and mama set the yard on fire not too long ago (that was another terrible day, they wouldn't let us out of our crates and the yard stunk and was all black afterwards) to get rid of dead leaves and other stuff, but the sweetgum balls were still there. Upon learning this I asked daddy to chop the tree down, but he explained that it was in the neighbor's yard and we can't cut it down. So I have decided to step lightly in my own yard and bark at the neighbor at every opportunity for having such a dumb and basset-unfriendly tree.
And these keys are way too small!
But I might be a little too dramatic here. My foot was OK after that and daddy gave me a treat for the trouble I went through and told me I was beautiful and that I would be OK. That calmed me down, and then he said 'Layla we have sexy bassets that need our attention'. And then we wrote the blog!
But I still hate sweetgum trees!
I would hate them too, absolutely! Hope you have a good weekend!
ReplyDeleteThey are everywhere in San Diego. The misanthrope in me suspects landscapers plant them to provide themselves with future job security. The balls have to be picked or raked up because they can damage lawn mowers. They are planted at the city park by our house and it makes playing at the park an unpleasant experience. The sap oozes out in large globs onto the sidewalk and the shallow roots tear up the ground. I really don't understand why anyone who has a brain and cares about their fellow-human would plant these evil trees. And don't give me, "They are beautiful in the fall." There are plenty of beautiful trees out there that bear useful fruit and provide nice shade but that don't result in broken ankles and puncture wounds.
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