Aliens!

Recently the cat has been allowed outside the house.  I find this to be terribly unfair.  He gets to poop in litter boxes and probably gets to roll in it too.  If I so much as look in the direction of the litter boxes when we go through the mud room on our way outside, I get hollered at and my basset derriere gets a gentle nudge from daddy's boot.  He also gets to poop outside.  I am only allowed to poop outside.  And he is such a fast little twerp!  I try to chase him and keep him from getting away but he can squeeze through small spaces because he is a cat, and cats are all little and weak and stupid.

But that is not the point of this blog.  Today we saw aliens!  They were up on the hill, where we are not allowed to go.  And they are weird-looking aliens too, not the big-headed kind.  These aliens walked on four feet and one of them had horns on its head.  I watched them at first and then when I saw them move towards the house I started barking like crazy to make sure mama and daddy could come out and fight them.  Or maybe sacrifice a cat or two in hopes they (the aliens) would go away (and take the cats with them).

Well daddy eventually came out, and here is what happened...

So I think daddy has been brainwashed by the aliens.  Who calls aliens 'dear'?  They have come to eat our brains or something they are not dears!  And obviously they are worth points but I think a weird alien with horns is worth more than 4 points!  I will have to watch him closely to make sure he doesn't try and make me into an alien hound slave.

Stupid TV Commercial # 41

So it is nearly Easter.  That is the holiday where a magical rabbit brings people chocolate and other candies, and hides it in the house in a basket.  Somehow this is related to religion.  It also has to do with Mardi Gras, which Layla sort of explained in another post.  We are not religious animals so the importance of these things are lost on us.  What I want to know is whether there is a giant rabbit running around my home or not.  I have seen regular rabbits in the yard before and heard the dogs talk about chasing them.  If they are anything like squirrels they are regular little punks, sitting in my window and gnawing on their stupid squirrel teeth.  They are just lucky there is a thick pane of glass between us, and that I am not an outside cat!

Anyway - Easter has this TV commercial called the 'Cadbury Easter Bunny'.  I don't know much about bunnies but I don't think they make the kind of noises the Cadbury bunny makes.  Well in this week's stupid commercial, they are having tryouts for a new bunny.  Notice the first animal is a pig - good luck pal.  The next two are a lion and a regular cat.  Neither of those two animals would be caught dead trying to be a bunny.  We would rather eat the bunny together after an invigorating chase scene where we both pounced on it together, and then high-fived each other after the kill.  We most certainly would not make odd noises while wearing bunny ears.  Clearly a case of animal abuse here.

Famous Basset Hound Friday # 48

I must apologize for being late with our Famous Basset Hound Friday entry. I was all ready to blog yesterday and then mama sprang the horrible trap on us: bath day. And even worse, she cut our toes off too! It was just awful. We tried to run away and hide (except Beau, he liked his bath and was strutting his stuff afterwards), but mama closed all the doors and gates.

Then, to make matters worse, we heard that Nibbler was up to his usual tricks and we had to put a stop to it, stumpy toes and all.

Take that you mean kitty

By the end of the day I was just too exhausted to blog. But today is a new day! We got daddy up promptly at 5:15 AM to begin our routine! Going outside and peeing! Coming in and laying on the couch! Sleeping while daddy watches cartoons! Whining at him until he got up and fed us! Although today mama fed us instead because she was tired of daddy's laziness. And then we played some! And now we are blogging!

So... this week's famous hound has inspired her own cartoon! Her name is Gabriel, and she is the animation partner for Mamoru Oshii. Mr. Oshii is an anime artist, and he draws important cartoons about basset hounds. His most famous one is called 'Ghost in the Shell', about a basset hound who finds itself stuck in a post-apocalyptic world filled with cyborgs. Although technically it is a cloned basset hound, but we feel that is way too complicated and really, cloned or not, a hound is a hound.

We hounds are all business

Gabriel the hound in the anime cartoon is named after the real Gabriel, who is the inspiration for the clone Gabriel in the cartoon. Mr. Oshii is definitely a dog person, he likes to play with his hounds, which is probably the best way a person can spend their free time (besides feeding their hounds of course).

Not the best picture but a cool hound and her cool person

So Gabriel is our newest famous hound!

Famous Basset Hound Friday # 37

Man what a busy week. Well for mom and dad that is. We mostly slept in our crates, chased each other around the house, barked at the neighbors and their dumb cat, and ate our food. But dad and mom are busy working. Dad keeps getting ready for waterfowl season, whatever that is. It means he is going to be getting up really early for the next 60 days to take care of duck hunters.

Anyway. We got some rain this week and that was OK - it made the yard all muddy which was fun to dig in, but that only got us in trouble. We also got in trouble for doing a little counter reconnaissance while mama made cookies today. It's really unfair to make such good-smelling stuff and then not let us hounds sniff it and eat some. But as soon as I came into the kitchen I got hollered at and sent to the other room. I even got sent to my crate today for investigating the litter box room and collecting more samples!

Oh well. At least I have Famous Basset Hound Friday today! And this week's hound is a newcomer on the famous hound scene! We found out about her while Google searching each of our names to see if there were famous hounds with our names, and sure enough we found one. This week's famous hound is "Layla Jane Basset Extraordinaire".

The hound of the moment

Layla Jane is a hound who promotes spay and neuter awareness. This is important because it keeps extra basset puppies from being born and not having good homes. Layla Jane is also a hound who likes to eat bugs like our own Layla. We even call our Layla 'Layla Jane' sometimes, but usually when she is misbehaving or trying to eat cookies from the counter. Layla Jane Basset Extraordinaire is also sassy like our Layla Jane - her latest Facebook post says 'Basset hounds don't have to squat when they pee... bonus!'. Well it's true, but I like to squat when I pee so I can take off like a rocket when I'm done. That's just how I roll.

I should also mention that when you search for 'Rosco' you get TONS of famous basset pictures, but it's actually Flash. Rosco was the human's name. Flash is the important one. There is another famous Rosco but he spells his name differently than me. But that is for another week.

So that's our latest famous hound!

I am not speaking to daddy right now

He is a big jerk. First he made me throw up the other night. I didn't know people could do this to us hounds but he found a way.

There I was, innocently chewing on a tasty treat he left laying by the fireplace. It smelled nice and smoky and yummy, and it was soft and chewy and it had a little plastic wrapper around it. The perfect thing for a hound girl to munch on at the end of her day.

Well when daddy saw I was eating that he went all nuclear on me. He yelled and told me no and said I was a bad girl. He made me go to my crate and I heard him cleaning it up. Then he and mama made me get in the bathtub. Bathtub means bathtime - but I was already pretty clean and they didn't turn the water on, so I was a little confused. Well daddy held my mouth open while he made mama put this stuff down my throat.

Now I know mama was doing this against her will because she wouldn't do that sort of thing to me. Daddy is the one who administers medicine and gross stuff. I wondered what the medicine was supposed to do because I wasn't sick or anything. He left and mama watched me and made me stay in the tub. I was pretty confused at this point and then it hit me - daddy had poisoned me! My stomach started gurgling and I started to feel sick. A few minutes later I was retching and throwing up my dinner, right there in the bathtub! Mama had to leave the room and daddy came in and watched me get sick.

THEN it was bathtime. He scrubbed me top to bottom and told me this wouldn't have happened if I didn't try to eat fireplace starter logs. Well, don't leave good-smelling treats like that laying out if you don't want me to eat it!

I was ready to forgive him this morning, but he got up really early and left us in our crates without giving us breakfast. That is a really good way to get on my bad side. When he finally came home he gave us our food and asked me to lay on the couch with him. I turned my backside to his approaches - I would have rather laid with Nibbler at that point - but eventually the warm blanket was too much to resist, and I felt like maybe I should forgive him. We had a nice nap and he rubbed my ears and my chest and told me I was pretty. Of course I already knew all that but it is nice to hear it, and we had made up.

Then later on he started to move the furniture around. He made me get off the couch and pushed everything into the other room, and made us all get in our crates. I swear he wants us to live there! When we finally got let out the living room wasn't all that livable - nothing to lay on in it anymore, and the only interesting thing left was paint and stuff. But of course us hounds weren't allowed to sniff this, we got herded outside and left there for a long time. When we finally got let back in, straight to our crates we went.

Um where did my couch go?

See what a slave driver he is? We FINALLY got to stay out for awhile, but of course with the furniture like this what good was it? And when we were outside barking at the neighbors he yelled at us to be quiet. We didn't get any scraps at dinner either, just our kibble. It's like daddy WANTS me to be angry with him.

How in the world am I supposed to live like this?

Who is Joey?

This is an important question. Joey is not just a random name that gets me charging across the yard in all my 60-pound basset glory. Joey is a real phenomenon, and he takes up a lot of my thinking time.

Joey is a cat.

See? See?? Doesn't he look really sad, like he needs a hound dog girl to befriend him? We let him in the house all the time so he doesn't have to sleep in the cold or the snow or be bitten by mosquitoes, but he just doesn't like me. I really want to play with him, but all he does when I get close is growl and try to swat me. So I bark at him, thinking it is his way of playing (sounds kind of rude to me), but he just runs away.

I feel badly for Joey but if he continues to be such a jerk then I'm not going to play with him anymore!

Trickery and deception will get you nowhere

Lately I have noticed a few things that bother me at my house. It is getting warmer and that means I want to spend more time outside. I like to lay on my deck and get some sun so I can work on my basset tan. The neighborhood is more alive now that the snow has melted and the birds are back, flying around and singing. I can also run through the yard quicker now and there is a hint of squirrel in the air. Even Joey jumps into our yard sometimes, and Sophia has been in her yard a lot lately.

Plenty of reasons for a hound to want to stay outside a bit longer than usual.

What are you yelling about? I can hear you.

But our parents don't want us to hang out in the yard. They would rather we go out and do our business, then come right back in. Dad always mumbles something about not chasing me in his underwear. Now I am a good hound lady, and I do my best to listen to the suggestions my owners make to me. But there are times I have to exert my independence. This usually goes pretty well if I get off the deck, as dad doesn't like to come down and get me. Sometimes I am rewarded by being left alone and allowed to come back inside when I am good and ready. Other times it results in mom or dad trying to trick us.

The trickery and deception worked on me for a little while - I wanted to believe. Dad would say something like 'let's go inside puppies', and we would all faithfully come bounding up the steps. But now that I take my time he tries to entice me upstairs with a treat. Now there are times where a treat sounds better than walking around in the yard, and he usually gives us treats when we come inside anyway. Other times he will say 'mama's home', and it is difficult not to give in to that temptation. Mama coming home is a joyous occasion. Lately he has asked if we want to go for a car ride. Car rides are the best!

I'm so happy!

But usually this is just a lie - he only says that to get us to come upstairs, and then he flops down on the couch to watch TV. Now that I know this happens I listen less and less. Plus he is dealing with a pro - I can trick Rosco into giving up The Good Bone pretty easily. The one trick I need to work on is when he says 'Nibs!' or 'Joey!', as if the cats were at the door. I really want to play with those cats but they are afraid of me. So I try and take advantage of cornering them so I can show them how nice I am, and more than once dad has tricked me into coming inside before I was good and ready, only to discover that there are no cats.

But me listening less and less is starting to make them come out and get me. The other day he came down with a broom, as if he were going to sweep me up the stairs.

So you see the sort of foolishness I have to put up with. This sort of devious behavior can really wear a girl down.

Nibbler has a big butt

The weather around here has been a lot nicer lately. For a long time it was pretty cold, and there was loads of snow and ice in the yard. We finally moved into a place where we can see out the windows and what do we get? Two months of ice and snow. Not much to look at, and hardly any birds or squirrels in sight.

That all changed recently. Once the weather started to warm up they opened the windows and the drapes so we could look out the glass doors. I'm loving those things. All of us can line up and see out it, no more crowding or head crawling or anything else when a cool little bird pops in. The last thing you want to see when a cool little bird pops in is Nibbler's butt in your face. Although if he is even in the room at all it's tough not to notice it.

These windows are definitely suboptimal, dude

We don't have our bird feeders up yet so they don't come right up to the window like they used to (see below for my favorite feeder setup), but I can still hear them chirping away out in the neighborhood. I'd like them to get close enough to see, or even reach out and grab. The place up in Michigan with all the dogs and cats has a great porch that is screened in, it's practically like living outside. I'll bet I could catch a bird if I lived outside like Joey, but of course he is such a big jerk that he makes living outside seem like a bad thing.

Either way, I'm glad warmer weather has come along.

Lucky squirrel, if this glass wasn't here I would own you

The waiting is the hardest part

I miss my dad. He's fun; he lets me walk on his shoulders, where I can look down on those dogs. He also fights with me, and we play Attack of the Shirt, which is where I jump at a shirt he throws over the back of a chair and kill it. I hope he comes home soon, he's on a mountain or something right now. Plus, my litter box needs cleaning. Also my food dish is getting less than 90% full.


He also sometimes lets me go outside. Outside is the best. That's where I met him and convinced him to bring me home. I even threw up on the seat of his truck on the way home to let him know he was mine. I know he appreciated it. But I'd like to go outside again.






I hope he comes home soon.