Basset Hounds

Lately I have had two basset hounds visiting. They come for the day, to dig for rats with my Dane/boxer cross Hamlet and to make my pit/Catahoula Zatoichi feel insecure. Zato is normally the "cute" one, the happy-go-lucky one that gets into all types of shenanigans. He eats light bulbs and climbs chain-link fences as Catahoulas are wont to do. Having these oddly-shaped dogs with comically floppy ears around is putting him off his game. While they are around, he mopes. When they leave, Hamlet whines. It's been just great.

Everyone should get to test-drive dogs. I used to think it might be sort of neat to have a basset hound. They're funny, at least. And I bet they're super at sitting on feet to keep them warm in the winter. I had a corgi once that was great at that, and I sort of miss it. However, I have come to the realization that I will never, not in a million years, get a full-time basset hound.

Here are six things that I've learned this week about basset hounds that helped me reach this conclusion.

1. They don't fetch.
2. They slobber on everything.
3. They can jump up on you, regardless of the laws of physics. And then they slobber on your chest.
4. The manage to slobber on their own ears. Their ears are always so wet and...slobbery.
5. Their feet are freakishly large, and are often covered in slobber that has rained down from their giant, slobbery maws.
6. They are not good ratters, despite the fact that they can fit down the holes and they have all that slobber to lubricate their passage.