The $125 fart

The other night Beau was acting sick.  He gets the lickies like Layla does sometimes.  Haven't heard of them before?  Well the lickies are when Layla gets a gas bubble in her tummy and walks around the house eating dirt and crud until she makes herself throw up.  Me, when I get a gas bubble, I stretch myself out until things work themselves out.  Usually I can do this without bothering anybody but sometimes I can't hide the fact.

What?  What sound?  I didn't hear anything

Well the rest of the dogs in the house are not so subtle.  Layla can't stretch as easily as me because she is so chunky, so she gets the lickies.  Breezy likes to pretend like she isn't gassy but she isn't fooling anyone.  And Beau is just too old to care.  But more often than not his lickies turn into worse tummy trouble because he breathes so hard that he sucks in a lot of air.  If he were to fart it all out at once it would probably blow the house up.  As it is he farts a lot and barks and coughs all at the same time.  It is not very endearing and he stinks the place up. So the other night when he started wheezing and his tummy was gurgling I thought 'Oh great here we go again'.  But instead he kept getting worse and worse until mama and daddy took him to the emergency vet.

I've been a lucky hound so far in life, I have only had to go to the regular vet.  The emergency vet sounds much worse.  We didn't get to ride along so I don't know what sort of torture they put Beau through.  But he came home good as new.  Daddy and mama were complaining that he just farted when they got there and it cost us $125.  I'm not sure if that is just a story they told to keep the rest of us quiet or if Beau really did just have such expensive gas.  But all I can think is how many treats $125 would've bought...  and it all went up in smoke...  sort of.

I think he just farted again

It's my Gotcha Day!

Yup one year ago today I got to go and live with my new mama and daddy! I left behind the living in the garage thing, and got to go to a place where I got lots of lovins' right away. Daddy and I sat on the couch together and he petted me and told me how beautiful I was!

Yes I know, but go ahead and keep telling me

My new hound brother and sister were not very friendly at first and to be honest I was kind of mean to them as well - but it was a very stressful time and I didn't know what to do! Besides Rosco can be a real jealous baby sometimes.

If he sniffs my butt one more time I swear I'll...

But now I get to live in a place where there are lots of belly rubs, treats, Chicken McNuggets, and couches to lay on.

Unfortunately daddy has to lay on the floor.

I also get to dig in the blankets and hide from everyone!

I am invisible in my top-secret basset fortress

So it has been a great year! Plus I got a special nacho chip for my Happy Gotcha Day treat! So as long as the Christmas Pig Monster stays dead for the rest of all time it is smooth sailing for this basset hound girl!

I hate sweetgum trees

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!

A late Merry Christmastime

We have been gone for over a week, and it's time to get everyone updated!

We spent a big part of Christmas up at Grandma's house in Michigan. We saw Max and Maggie again, and also Griff and Remy and a new dog named Tinker. Tinker didn't get to run with us because she was tied to her car (her mama is afraid she would be too aggressive but she seemed fine to us - she had a thick fur coat and a really good howl, almost as good as mine). Now as you may recall, I did not always get along with Max and Maggie. However, I decided to try and be a good puppy cousin this year and have a good time. As it turns out they were much better behaved. I only had to howl at Maggie and Max every once in awhile. If Max tried the puppymaking game I threw him to the floor.

This happened a few times. I really am that smokin' hot

Now I still did not like Griff - he is such a big lummox and he runs into everything and his tail is like a furry wrecking ball - so I had to howl in his face quite a few times. Oh well, that's just the way family is at Christmastime.

Imagine this in motion, not a pretty sight

We had a white Christmastime, sort of. We got snow the day before and we had to go out and pee in it. Layla and Rosco thought the snow was great, while Max and Maggie didn't seem to care. I guess they are used to it, but I am a Missouri Hound at heart, and we do not do well with snowpacolypse, or whatever Layla calls it.

So... you're not going to carry me out there?

You expect me to pee WHERE?

But the highlight of the Christmastime was definitely the kids. I met the kids earlier this year - you might remember me and Miss Ashlee played basset princess and her personal chauffeur - and we got to see them again. The kids remind me of the good parts of my old home, the parts where I got to play with kids and chase them and protect them from lummox dogs like Griff. I did my best to protect everyone from everything but I am only one dog, and I can only do so much.

I couldn't protect everyone; Drake was OK but Ashlee got slobbered on

Another upside to the kids is that they are short and they drop food all the time. In fact we got lots of treats at Grandma's, way more than we do at home.

All you had to do was be patient

They didn't always eat everything and a patient dog got the goodies

I was starting to think about staying there forever but then we had to get in the car and go back home. Now the long car rides are not my favorite thing. I don't like to be jostled when I am sleeping and between the bumpy road, the packed car, and the lummox brother and sister I have, I got barely any sleep. Plus the cats - yes all five of them - were in on this car ride and I had a hard time sleeping when they needed to be constantly monitored so they didn't get out of the crate.

These conditions are horrible

That reminds me, Grandma's has other cats too. They are different from our cats and they also need to be closely monitored and possibly chased. This one cat named Maisy looks like a furry Ottoman that ran into a brick wall. She makes lots of noise and I tried to chase her a few times, but dad always stopped me.

If you don't keep them in line they get all Terminator on you...

Anyway... back to the car ride home. As I said, I did not enjoy myself, but mama's car ride home was even worse. She was really sick. Now normally when I get sick the best thing to do is try and have a treat and go lay in my crate for awhile. Well, mama didn't want any treats and the only crate had 5 cats and a litter box in it. So she toughed it out and rode most of the way home sitting up, but finally daddy told her to lay down in the back so she could get comfortable. That opened up the front seat for me, and I got to be the co-pilot!

You're doing great, but keep your eyes on the road

A co-pilot's job is making sure that daddy doesn't speed or hit anything, and not to let any slow dogs pass us by. I did my best but you can only do so much with such poor raw material.

I think that Shar-Pei just flipped us off

Floor it daddy we need to leave him in the dust!

Anyway, once we got home, mama slept for a long time and daddy went to the great-grandma's house for another Christmastime. I stayed home to make sure that darn Christmas Pig Monster stayed in the yard where he belonged. I thought I heard daddy come home later but it was just the neighbor, or possibly another Christmas Pig Monster joining forces. But no. Just the neighbor. Then the next day, daddy came home, and he brought my other grandma and grandpa with him! I was so excited to have someone else to lay upon!

Grandpa's lap is a pretty good place to take a nap

See what a beautiful bunch of ladies we are? And then there's Rosco...

Well we were all having a great Christmastime when who should appear at my doorstep but Evil Uncle Casey. I sprang from my bed to bite him and howl in his face, but his heart grew three sizes that day and he decided to make up for his earlier transgressions by giving us all a treat. I was suspicious at first, like maybe he had poisoned it or something, but Layla and Rosco wolfed theirs down and they didn't die or anything. So I ate mine and decided that Evil Uncle Casey was going to be known from then on as Not Too Bad Uncle Casey (until he screws up again).

So that was my Christmastime! Hope everyone else had a good one.

Christmas costumes and monster!

Rosco and Layla have been telling me about a Christmas tradition that we all have to go through each year. We have to wear costumes. Rosco even had to wear a beard and a hat once. I don't know how he got through it but he did. Well, yesterday was the day. I wasn't looking forward to it but at least we got a treat out of the deal.

It was utter chaos

As hectic as things were I have to say that I think I looked pretty good in my pretty Mrs. Santa Paws outfit. But I always do cut a stunning figure.

Mrs. Paws has nothing on me

Rosco and Laya were less well behaved with their costumes. They kept trying to take their hats off. Mama and daddy didn't even try the beard this year and I don't blame them - Rosco is a little brat and a beard on a lady hound is just ridiculous. Layla always tries to bite the hat band anyway.

Rosco never keeps his hat on

The beard would've gotten in the way of her antler hat

So the costume party ended (finally!) and we thought the perils of Christmastime were over. But we were wrong. Mama brought this big baggy thing out from the laundry room. It smelled like the outside and we were of course duty-bound as hounds to investigate it. She hollered at us and told us to quit walking on the pig. Well it didn't look like any pig to me! She taped it here and taped it there. Then she plugged it in (an electric pig at that!) and it started to inflate.

You might call this a pig but it is clearly a monster

Once he started to inflate mama was very happy. I am a bit suspicious about her now, I think she may have been brainwashed. Christmas Pig Monster was sitting there looking very smug in my living room and his fan was making enough noise that I couldn't have napped even if there weren't a monster sitting next to my TV. I began to formulate a plan but then mama's brainwashing went away and she told daddy to take the pig (AKA Christmas Pig Monster) outside. OK good, I thought, now I have a bit more time and perhaps I can kill him in the yard the next time I got out. Well, daddy took care of it for me. Christmas Pig Monster went in the front yard. He only comes alive when it is night time, and really that isn't such a bad deal because he will keep other dogs and cats out of our yard. Just so he doesn't come back in my living room again we have an uneasy truce.

He doesn't look too good right now

I vanquished him and saved Christmastime! No more photos please.

Famous Basset Hound Friday # 40

Wow it is hard to believe that we are getting close to an entire year of famous hounds. It seems like only yesterday we started it off with the original blog about them. How time flies! Time flies when you are having fun! Jowls fly on car rides!

This week's famous hound is a bit of a celebrity. We have actually been in the same place as him too! He visited the GABR waddle the first year we went! His name is Shooter, and he is the personal hound trainer of the Chicago Blackhawk's hockey player Patrick Sharp. Because the waddle is so close to Chicago he came to visit with his mama. I think his mama is a pretty lady, but my heart still belongs to Kirsten Dunst. I hope she doesn't read this and get jealous!

Scooter at the 2010 Waddle

Anyway. Shooter is very important in hockey. He has trained Patrick Sharp on how to stay on his feet and always be a good hockey player. Watch the video below for some training in action.

I think Shooter has done a pretty good job. You have to start training humans early on or they will start to think they run the place. In fact, he did such a good job training Patrick Sharp that they won the Stanley Cup, which evidently is the world's biggest treat container!

Who designed this thing anyway?

So there you have it, a hound who trained a person to run around on the ice with a stick and not get hurt! This is clearly a famous hound!

Handsome fellow. The human isn't too bad either, I guess

HOSA public service announcement

Greetings readers! Rosco here, bringing you an important holiday update! Now as you know, the holiday of Tanksgiving is coming up. At first I thought 'What a strange holiday - giving each other tanks.' Then daddy explained it was actually a day to be thankful for what we have. It is also a day to eat a ton of food and sleep a lot. Or, as we bassets call it, Wednesday.

But the thankful part got me thinking about what I am thankful for. I am really thankful for my mama, daddy, sisters, cousins, grandmas, toys, treats, food dish, and bed. I am also thankful for the dog park, walks, car rides, and belly rubs. Most of those things are pretty safe but mama and daddy are in constant danger - and that's where the Hound Dog Safety Administration (HOSA) comes in.

Now your humans face multiple threats throughout the day. They include slipping and falling, but a good HOSA dog is ready to thwart these threats at a moment's notice.

Humans trip all the time

They also fall a lot too

Slippery floors are their worst enemy; they never bother to lick up puddles

So the only real option us HOSA dogs have is to be vigilant and be ready to act when necessary. I have included a few updates to these signs below, to give you some ideas on what to watch out for.

Well if you won't clean the puddles up I guess we have to catch you...

Us hounds have sturdy backs to catch your uncoordinated bodies!

Never fear human, HOSA dog is here!

But one of the most important things we can do is help a human who is choking on their food. Now a good HOSA dog needs to understand what basset safety researchers refer to as the 'Houndlich Maneuver'. Without this breakthrough technique, lots of hounds would have no way to save their humans. But with this simple action, we can help our people make it through the traumatic experience that is choking on food. The picture below shows you exactly what to do!

See it is that simple! Go HOSA dogs!

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?

These walks will be the death of me

So as you may recall I was recently told by some quack veterinarian that I needed to lose weight because I am too fat. Well, I happen to think that Czechoslovakian vets are not the foremost authority on beautiful voluptuous basset hound ladies, but mom and dad have taken her words to heart and are making us all exercise.

By going on walks. Now normally walks are great fun - you can stroll around town at your leisure, sniff all the interesting smells, terrorize geese and squirrels and bunnies, work on your basset tan, pick up scraps of goodies off the ground (when your slave-driving human isn't yanking on your leash), get lovins' from people who walk by, and fraternize with the dogs in the neighborhood.

But these new walks are terrible. We live in Missouri, which evidently had some mountains installed since I learned my basset geography, because our walks are less about basset enjoyment and more about basset exhaustion. Up and down hills, no getting to smell the neighbor's yard, no playing with other puppies in the area (everyone has dogs with fences and they are all barky and mean-sounding), the dead of summer heat, and conflicting human commands ('keep walking' vs. 'quit pulling - make up your MINDS).

But mom is relentless. The other day she practically dragged me home. I wish they would take us to the dog park so I could snooze in the sun and play with some other dogs at my own leisure, instead of being walked until my stumpy feet are sore. And not getting to stop and smell things is just cruel - a waste of a perfectly good hound nose. Of course sometimes the walks end with a good treat (we got Frosty Paws yesterday), but other times we only get to come in and run up a flight of stairs to get to our water. Stupid split-level house.

Here is a pictorial example of how to treat your basset hound, humans.

The right way - look at how happy the person and the hound both are

The wrong way - this hound is on the brink of death!

Famous Frid- er, Sat- what the heck day is it anyway?

Hello faithful readers! Sorry we missed our latest Famous Basset Hound Friday. We had a good excuse. It was mama's birthday, and since she is working now way outside of town, we decided we were going to give her extra attention on her special day!

Of course daddy got her lots of good presents and toys and treats. He even put up a banner that says 'Happy Birthday' and was going to put up a bunch of pretty stuff but mama came home too early. He got her flowers to plant outside and treats to eat (cupcakes, I had those on my birthday and I remember how delicious they were), and he even got her a balloon. Except his balloon said 'Happy Mother's Day', and I guess that was OK since she is a mama to us. But I think he made a mistake.

Now that I think about it mama can be our first every 'Honorary Basset Hound'. She possesses many qualities of basset hounditude. First of all she is very beautiful, and she carries herself with a certain dignity that only us hounds can manage. She likes to be outside like we do and she enjoys smelling things (although they are mostly pretty things like flowers and lotions, but hey smelling still counts). She likes to take naps and she enjoys eating good food. She also has been teaching me to howl and she does a pretty good job herself. And of course she likes to snuggle with us, which is something all hounds enjoy. In fact the only thing she does that is unhoundlike is that she doesn't roll in stuff like we do. But we think that's because she makes herself smell good with lotions and sprays and stuff.

So she is our first Honorary Basset Hound!

Am I a crazy person?

I saw a recent online article about how we are, mathematically speaking, almost certainly living within a computer simulation of some hyper-advanced culture.  Accepting a few necessary assumptions, you can show that it's pretty much likely that the entire universe is a computer program.

That of course made me think of movies like The Matrix, where people's entire realities (and not to mention acting careers) are suddenly cast into doubt as it is revealed that everything they think they know is a lie.  As a scientist, or a person who is curious about the way the world works, such a revelation would really suck.  I've spent the better part of my life trying to learn.  It all sounds crazy.

I was reminded that craziness is probably one of those 'eye of the beholder' kind of things tonight.  I had to go to the grocery store to pick up some dog treats because they are being visited by a pet-sitter this week (I can't come home at lunch due to training to let them out).  While I was leaving the store I noticed a fiery searcher wandering around the pavement near the gardening section.

Before you ask, this is a fiery searcher.

These are substantial insects, and they have mandibles that could result in a painful bite.  Not something to try and capture if you are preoccupied with the 5 pound bag of peanut butter-flavored, breath-freshening dog biscuits you just purchased, along with the questionable sci-fi movie you rented from Redbox.  But this is a cool beetle - a real collector's item.  Not terribly rare or anything, but one that I don't have yet and one that I've been searching for since the fall of 2009.  So what was I to do?

Well, I ran to my car and searched for something to put it in.  Normally there are about 500 discarded cups and pop bottles, but I cleaned it out the other day, so no luck there.  However, I was able to find some trash in the parking lot that would work.  All I had to do was dump out the pink lemonade or whatever the hell it was.  I only got a few stares as I was trying to find this bug again, and was chasing it down with a McDonald's cup outside the front of a Wal-Mart.  I console myself that most of them were dressed like twerps and appeared, like most 18-30 year-olds in college towns across America, to be on drugs.  Clearly, pursuing beetles in parking lots is standard operating procedure.

Is this the behavior of a crazy person?

My first anniversary

Some of my hound friends call it their 'gotcha' day. It's the day that us rescue hounds were brought to our forever homes. A forever home is the home that we stay at forever, so we don't have to live in a rescue facility anymore. Honestly, I have to teach you people everything!

I wasn't always the happy, satisfied hound girl I am today. Once upon a time I was owned by someone else, and they didn't have time to care for me, and they left me in a yard all day long. Then when they came home I only got to sleep in the kitchen at night. Then they had a baby and discovered it was allergic to me (how this was my fault is beyond me, it sounds like this kid is going to have a rough life), so they decided they didn't want me anymore. I was pretty sad.

But then my forever home came and found me. So today is my 'gotcha' day! One year ago today I was rescued from The Noah Project in Muskegon, Michigan. Mom and dad came to visit me with Rosco at the facility, and I was such a happy girl once I felt comfortable around them. Dad threw me a ball and Rosco was mostly shy.

I was also really interested in kittens at that time (I still am). There were some kittens at The Noah Project and I was barking at them to tell them not to worry, someone would adopt them!

Looking back at those old pictures brings back some memories! I was really skinny and underfed and sad and lonely - but once I got to my forever home they filled me in to my current beautiful weight. I also got to sleep on some soft beds, which took a little getting used to at first.

The couch was the right place for me, with my mom. I also got to sleep in the bed with mom that night (Rosco and dad slept on the floor, to let me get used to my new home).

The next day they had Easter, and we were forced to wear these silly bunny helmets. I was beginning to have second thoughts at that point - we were at grandma's house and all the new dogs were laughing at me - but they also gave us Easter treats and only made me wear the dumb things for a little while. Still, what a way to welcome a new hound girl to her forever home!

But in the end this was the right place for me. I have a brother and sister, and my mom and dad love me and give me all the attention and foodstuffs that I deserve. I don't have to sleep outside anymore (although I will say I do like to lay on the deck in the warm sun), and I am treated like the princess I really am. Happy gotcha day!