Three cheers for basset hounds!

On a Thursday about wo weeks ago, Oregon Basset Hound Rescue received this request and our adoption coordinator sent it out to the volunteers.

Hello,
My name is L*** and I’m emailing for an old man I met who has 4 Bassett
hounds 3 of whom need homes. The man’s health has declined and he needs to
move from his home to a place more suited to help him but he can’t until
these poor little babies find homes…These are beautiful dogs and I want to help them get a life they deserve.

There were 2 males, Barney and Buddy, and a female named Pearl who needed homes. I put on my OBHR superhero cape and went into action.

Buddy, son of Pearl and Barney,  was about a year old and I had the perfect home for him. I had done a home visit in January for a woman who had an older dog and an adult basset mix and wanted a wanted a younger basset. We had a 1 year old boy available at the time and got several applications on him. I did two home visits for that dog, but they were second & third in line for that young fellow. I always tell people we mostly get older dogs, but, if they can be patient  a younger dog might come along. She was thrilled when I contacted her, excited at the prospect. Check, one dog taken care of.

I manage the Oregon Basset Hound Games Facebook page and our President asked me to post the dogs there to get word out quickly. Within a few hours, there were lots of comments, but two people messaged me. One was a person who had adopted from and fostered for us before. Check….a foster home in case we don’t get anyone else. Maybe a good home for Barney.

The third was a woman who had lost a senior female in March and was especially interested in Pearl, who, at 4 or 5, had lived a hard life, giving birth to several litters.

I told her our process and she had her adoption application filled out by the next day. I did the home visit the following Monday, where I met her current dog and looked around her home. Boom…three potential families.

I contacted the woman to let her know we had three candidates and worked out a time and place to make the exchange. They were out of town for a few days and lived 2 hours from Portland. One of the adopters had something on the next weekend. Finally, we settled on Saturday, May 7. The dogs had never been to a vet, and I don’t know what to expect, though the original owner said he got rabies vaccine from the feed store and did his own at home.  With no official records, we decided to make an appointment with our vet, get the three dogs microchipped and vaccinated, and give them a once over.

I thought, calling a week and a half ahead, we would have no problem getting an appointment. Of course, I was mistaken. Fortunately, I spoke directly the vet and she said we should just bring them in around noon and she would squeeze them in.

And so Saturday rolled around. I checked Friday to be sure everyone was still on board. You’d be surprised how often these things fall through. Once again, the odds were in my favor and everyone was still good to go.

When I got to the clinic, I met the angels who had contacted us in the parking lot and finally met the dogs. Oh, they were filthy and their nails were horrifically long. We waddled our way into the clinic and they put us in a room. It was about 1 p.m. Three people and three stinky dogs in a room.

Barney was going to live with a family three hours east of Portland, so he went first. Pearl and Buddy mourned his departure. For dogs who had never lived in doors, they quickly learned the meaning of the door. He was back before too long, with ear cleaner and drops for a minor ear infection, and I texted his foster family. We’d arranged for them to arrive by two and both they and Barney were good to go by that time.

And then there were two.

Pearl and Buddy each got their turn. Pearl also had an ear infection and got cleaner and drops, but Buddy was in good health. I texted their new moms and they arrived by three. We spent some time in the room, talking over what the vet had said. And then, we all left.

Buddy’s mom sent me some photos Saturday evening. he was settling in nicely.

Barney’s foster mom said he did well on the drive. We got him up on Petfinder today. This picture ought to get some action.

Today I heard that Pearl is also settling in well. She was the one my heart went out to her. It was the day before Mother’s Day and I was breaking up her family. To top it all off, her mammary glands were so stretched, they almost dragged on the ground and she was in heat.  But she has a new home with a new mom and a lovely sister and the rest of her life to relax.

I’d spent three hours in that small room. I was exhausted, covered in dog hair and smelled like a kennel. When I got home, I threw my clothes in the washer, had a shower and then a nap. I slept like a baby.

 

 

Disappointment

It seemed like a perfect plan.

Earlier this week, Oregon Basset Hound rescue had been contacted by a man in Southern Oregon about rehoming his 2-year-old basset hound named Thor.

Our adoption coordinator sent out an email to see if we had anyone approved and looking for a young dog. I answered right away, knowing I had the perfect candidate.

I had done Roger’s home visit in January. He’d lost his basset, Sarge,  a while back and was now ready to get a new family member. Roger was friendly,  laid-back and worked 5 minutes from home, so he could check in frequently on a new dog. A great potential adopter. In January, we didn’t have anything for him, but it wasn’t January anymore.

Emails and phone calls ensued and today was supposed to be the day.  We had arranged a midway point where Roger could meet Thor, who was staying with his dad because we had no foster spots available. It would be a three-hour drive North for Thor’s dad, a two-hour drive South for me, and a little more than a two-hour drive South for Roger.

And then it all fell apart.

I got an email yesterday from Thor’s dad saying he’d changed his mind. Crap. I wanted to cry. I wasn’t adopting Thor, but I was really excited about facilitating this adoption. I just knew in my heart this was going to be a good match. Instead, I had to get in touch with Roger, who was, naturally, disappointed. No one likes to give bad news and I felt like I had failed.

Roger gets to stay at the top of our list. I hope we can find another perfect match for him. I wish Thor and his dad all the best.

I’m a sucker for a good dog story

Even though the subtitle of Gary Paulsen’s  This Side of Wild is   Mutts, Mares and Laughing Dinosaurs I didn’t realize it was going to be the kind of book it was. I knew it was nonfiction, but assumed it would be more like expository than memoir, which is what it is.

He got me with the first story about Corky, a three-toothed poodle no one wanted,  who could frighten off bears. It made me think for a moment, and only a moment, that maybe my next dog should be a poodle. The other stories in the book tell of remarkable animals Paulsen has encountered. Although marketed for middle grades, it is listed s 10 & up. By up, I think they mean way up:  I think many adults would enjoy reading this.

Publisher’s Summary: Longlisted for the National Book Award

The Newbery Honor–winning author of Hatchet and Dogsongshares surprising true stories about his relationship with animals, highlighting their compassion, intellect, intuition, and sense of adventure.

Gary Paulsen is an adventurer who competed in two Iditarods, survived the Minnesota wilderness, and climbed the Bighorns. None of this would have been possible without his truest companion: his animals. Sled dogs rescued him in Alaska, a sickened poodle guarded his well-being, and a horse led him across a desert. Through his interactions with dogs, horses, birds, and more, Gary has been struck with the belief that animals know more than we may fathom.

His understanding and admiration of animals is well known, and in This Side of Wild, which has taken a lifetime to write, he proves the ways in which they have taught him to be a better person.

OBHR Calling

“Hi! My name is Adrienne and I am  volunteer with Oregon Basset Hound rescue. Our adoption coordinator forwarded your application to me and I am calling to touch base with you and see about setting up a home visit.”

I’ve made that call 4 times in the last two weeks. It’s been a year since OBHR had an application that called for me to do a home visit. Suddenly, we are inundated with applicants.

It might have to do with this guy.

Sherman is the youngest dog we’ve had posted for a while. Most people who have lost dogs want a younger dog who will be with them a little longer than an older dog might. It’s understandable. When I lost Louie, six years ago, I said the same thing, which is why I ended up with Lucy.

Sherman’s adoption is pending. He’s on a visit with a family that, we hope, will be become his forever home, and who will work on his tendency to chew things.

We’ve rehomed one other dog, Ellie, since the start of the year and have another looking for a new home.

Walter is a little older and needs to be an only dog.

And there are probably two more coming in shortly, a bonded pair, that cannot be separated.

2016 might be busy for OBHR.

Fiona’s 7th Gotcha Day

Seven years ago today, I drove down to the rest area south of Wilsonville where I met a volunteer with Oregon Basset Hound Rescue who would introduce me to Fiona for the very first time and then let me take her home.

It wasn’t an immediate match made in heaven moment. Fiona didn’t make eye contact. She didn’t try to run away and she wasn’t aggressive; she was just pretending it wasn’t happening. She paid attention to a flower stem nearby, but totally ignored me. She gave a little more attention to Louie, who I’d brought along to make sure they’d get along. They didn’t romp and play, but they were civil.

So, I packed both dogs into the backseat of my car and drove home.

Fiona spent the first three days sitting behind a chair in the living room. She peed, but didn’t poop. I was starting to worry.

And then magic happened on the third day.

At some point that day, she pooped. I’d already sent off a worried email to the OBHR folks wondering if I should take her to the vet. She pooped before I got a response. The real magic happened at bedtime. Although she had followed Louie & I into the bedroom for the first two nights, she chose to sleep on the floor. On the third night she jumped up into bed with us and I cried tears of joy. I knew everything was going to work out just fine.

So, here we are, seven years later. Fiona sleeps on the floor most nights now. She is arthritic and likes to stretch out and sleeping on my bed doesn’t allow for that.  We spend days on the sofa together, though. There is enough room there for her to stretch out on my left and Lucy to curl up on my right. Sometimes the space in between for me is tight, but I take it.

She is old now: 14-1/2. That is very old for a basset hound, whose average lifespan is about 9-12 years. Her back end is wobbly and most walks are only around the block. If she is really perky, we’ll go two blocks. She sleeps a lot and sometimes she sleeps so deeply, I check to make sure she is still breathing. So far, so good.

 

She was at the vet yesterday because she has a bit of a skin issue right now and I was worried it might be ringworm. It was a new vet because Fiona’s vet of seven years has moved. Dr Klau did a thorough exam, since it was his first time seeing her. She was down a few more pounds. One eye is cloudy, but she can still see out of it. Her heart and lungs sounded good and her abdomen felt just like it should. Fortunately, the skin thing isn’t ringworm, but a bacterial skin infection, so she is on an antibiotic that I hope does the trick to make her feel a little less itchy.

I often joke that she is so stubborn and so expensive that she will live to be 20. May it be so.

Happy Gotcha Day, Miss Fiona!

 

 

 

2015 Oregon Basset Hound Games

July brings the dog days of summer. Literally. The Oregon Basset Hound Games is always held on the third Sunday in July.

The planning team was a little short-handed this year and the weather was hot, which Oregonians fear and loathe, but the show must go on, and it did with gusto.

As always, the Games opened with the limbo. Although bassets are low riders, their tails prove to be their downfall in this event.

There are several highlights. Everyone  loves the costume contest. Everyone of the two-leggers that is; the results are inconclusive for the four-leggers.

The poor lithe dalmatian in the middle kept trying to remove her hat. Others were more cooperative.

Aside from their sad faces and stubbornness, basset hounds are infamous for two things: laziness and howling. Naturally, there is a Marathon Napping contest.

Some years, there seem to be more barkers than howlers. This was not one of them.

My favorite event is the last event: Synchronized Swimming. The concept is simple. Lead your basset to the kiddie pool. Convince him/her to get all four paws in the pool. Get out on the other side and cross the finish line. Unfortunately, base hounds hate water and most refuse to get into the pool. Watching the owners try to convince their dog to get on the pool is hilarious.

 

 

 

 

Charity Crafting

I finished the sweater on Monday. It took me several hours to sew all the seams, fix the spelling mistake and weave in all the ends. I pressed it for two days and now, it is sitting on my kitchen table ready for Sunday’s Oregon Basset Hound Games.

A few weeks ago I responded to a blog post from Knitpicks asking people about what sorts of charity crafting they do. I sent an e-mail that said:

I got Clara, my first basset hound in 1996. She belonged to my former roommates. Clara & I hit it off from the start. After I moved out, my friends called me and said Clara missed me, would I like to have her. Of course, I took her, but felt sorry for her being home alone, so I took my first step into basset hound rescue and got her a companion, Louie.

When Clara passed away, in 2008, I got Fiona, my first basset from Oregon Basset Hound Rescue (OBHR). Louie passed a year later and I got Lucy, as a companion for Fiona and began volunteering for OBHR.

Every year, OBHR holds summer games in Woodburn Oregon. In addition to the Games, there is a raffle. Four years ago, I started knitting a sweeter for the raffle. I am currently working on my 5th sweater for the Games. It has become a games tradition.

I’m not sure that this is the sort of “knitting for charity” project you are looking for, but I’d love to share more about it, if it seems interesting to you.

 

I got an e-mail asking if I’d be willing to talk about it on their podcast and said yes.

Last week, I called a number and recorded my one minute description of what I do each year for OBHR. You can listen to that podcast HERE.

There are lots of ways you can craft for charity. I hope this inspires you to find your muse.

Basset Games Sweater Problems

The 2015 Oregon Basset Hound Games will take place next Sunday, July 19th. I am madly knitting to finish this year’s sweater. I usually have it finished by now,  but, I got a late start this year. I could blame my Morris Committee work for not being finished, but it is my own darn fault.

You see, I had an idea for a sweater of my own design. But I am not a designer. I planned to use a plain sweater pattern, but knit a basset head on the front and it’s cute backside on the back. I even found an online chart creator to convert pictures into something knitable. But I realized I should knit a prototype to see if it actually worked and I just didn’t want to. So, I opted to reuse a pattern from a few years ago, using the intarsia from this pattern by Peggy Gaffney’s Kanine Knits but on a different sweater than the pattern called for.

I was almost finished the front when I noticed a problem. I guess the first time I knit this pattern I caught the error in the pattern. Here is the first sweater I knit about 5 years ago.

What I noticed the first time, but didn’t this time in my haste to finish the sweater was that the chart spelled basset with two t’s: bassett. Bassset owner see this frequently, and kindly correct it, just as they kindly correct people who call their bassets beagles.

Here is the unassembled front with the spelling mistake.

Fortunately, I can remedy this problem by sewing duplicate stitch over the offending “t”.

Today’s task is to finish the first sleeve and start the second. I have 9 days to finish both sleeves, fix the spelling, knit the collar and assemble the sweater. It is a good thing I am on vacation. I will finish on time and probably be able to squeeze in a book or two before the Games on the 19th.

 

 

Lucy is 9 today

It is Lucy’s 9th birthday. That means she’s been with me for 5 years. My how time has flown. If you don’t remember it, you can read a little bit about Lucy’s story.

Lucy is a snuggler and adjusts her blankets and bedding for maximum comfort. She loves to sleep pressed up against me.

I did something to my back and spent much of yesterday with my heating pad, Lucy and Fiona snuggled beside me. I am much better today, but I am still using the heating pad. This is an excuse to read and knit. I have a couple of dog related books on my shelf right now.

In Dan Gemeinhart’s debut novel, a boy named Mark, tired of being sick with cancer, conceives a plan to climb Mount Rainier, and runs away from home with his dog, Beau–but with over two hundred miles between him and his goal, and only anger at his situation to drive him on nothing will be easy, and only his best friend, Jessie, suspects where he is heading.

A Handful of Stars is Cynthia Lord’s latest. When her blind dog slips his collar, twelve-year old Lily meets Salma Santiago, a young Hispanic girl whose migrant family are in Maine for the blueberry-picking season, and, based partly on their mutual love of dogs, the two forge a friendship while painting bee boxes for Lily’s grandfather–but as the Blueberry Queen pageant approaches Lily and Selma are confronted with some of the hard truths of prejudice and migrant life.

Watkins: A story of hope

The online basset world has been buzzing lately with the story of Watkins.

About a month ago, the president of the Buchanan County (Virginia) Humane Society, Stephanie,  was contacted by a neighbor about an abused and abandoned dog who had been dumped in a ditch. Stephanie and her husband went out looking and, when they finally found him, rushed him to their vet.

Although this picture looks idyllic, the dog was in terrible shape and the vet, Dr. Rasnake, felt he might be near death. She estimated the puppy to be approximately 4 months old and a  basset- walker hound mix. They got him on an IV and admitted him to the Buchanan County Humane Society’s ICU. They named him Watkins, after the street where he was found

and started sharing his story. Law enforcement was contacted and the investigation is ongoing.

Watkins has not had an easy time. He had to have emergency surgery for a twisted bowel. He is still on a feeding tube because he is not yet interested in food. But he continues to heal. His FB fans all over the world celebrated when he finally pooped. He spent a few days at the Virginia Tech vet hospital, but has returned to the Buchanan County Humane Society’s ICU. People are finally starting to use the words “full recovery”, though he still has a long road of healing ahead of him.

 Here he is yesterday, with Stephanie.

I deliberately chose to post few pictures of Watkins. You can click on his name above to see his FB page that show pictures of his progress. You might be horrified at how he looks today, but know that he looks so very much better than he did a month ago.

Watkins has FB friends all over the world now. He also has huge vet bills. Fortunately the vets looking after him are not talking about the bills. They are more concerned with saving this little man. If you would like to follow Watkin’s story, you can do so through his FB page, which Stephanie updates regularly.  You can also help by making a donation online HERE or you can donate directly by mail:  Buchanan Co. Humane Society C/O Watkins PO Box 2611 Grundy, Va 24614.

With all the horrible things going on in the world the life of one puppy might not seem like much. I often worry that my dogs have better health care than many people around the world. Watkins is certainly getting more help than many people. Some people might question why so many people care about Watkins when so many people suffer. It is true that many problems in the world deserve our time and energy. Maybe by reaching out to help a puppy we can soften our hearts to the point where we reach out and help humans as well as animals.

So think about it. If you can’t help Watkins, what can you do to help someone, or something that needs help closer to home. What time, talents or treasures do you have that you can use to help alleviate suffering somewhere in this world.