I want to thank you all for calling, texting, emailing and checking in with your love and concern for our family and our Bassets.  I have never felt so loved !!  The full story is below. This is Sunshine and her puppies just chilling out during the storm.

On Tuesday, two tornados struck our community of Forney.  We were so blessed by God and protected that we were totally untouched by both of them. The first large tornado was in the small town Lancaster just southeast of us and as we watched the weatherman and his tracking radar it was headed directly toward us.  We secured all of the outside dogs in their pens, had our mama Sunshine and pups, pregnant Annabelle and our blind Wilma in the house and we prepared our very, very tiny half bathroom on the first floor for our shelter. It is the only place in our big old farmhouse without windows and secure.  THEN WE PRAYED and asked God to protect us and esp. to protect our outside dogs.  That tornado headed for our house lifted right back up into the clouds.  An hour or so later the funnels were forming just west of our pasture, clouds swirling over our heads, strong wind, thunder and lightening...not a drop of rain....and the whole storm front went to the back of our property (back pasture) and on into Forney where the two tornados came down about 5 miles from our home. We are tremendously thankful to God for his Hand of protection over all of us.  There were 100 homes damaged and 22 completely destroyed in Forney. Our Forney Animal Hospital (our precious vets, Dr. Nix and Dr. Hammond) received a direct hit from the tornado....all staff and all of the animals kenneled there were totally unhurt although the middle of the roof was blown off and other damage occurred.  All over Forney there was damage but only minor injuries and no one was killed.  This is an absolute miracle !!
Of course our hearts go out to everyone devastated by the tornados and we are very encouraged to see our community all pulling together to help each other.  God is good !

    One of the many blessings of raising Bassets is making connections with such wonderful families. There is just something special about people who love Basset Hounds.  I have been blessed to make some dear friends through my Bassets. I recently got to be with two such families.  It is an extra special delight to be invited for a home visit and to see my babies all grown up (or growing up as with Clementine) in their home enviroment and interacting with the ones they love.  Of course, I also get lots of loving too from my grown up babies. John and Pam took their Molly and Maggie (now referred to as the "naughty sisters") home in July 2010. They have kept me updated on their girls and have been a huge encouragement in my life.   Their daughter, Kathleen and her family took Clementine home just six months ago. It was such fun to see her boys playing with their much loved puppy.  My desire in raising puppies is that they will go home to loving forever families and to see this desire being fulfilled just made my day !!
And to see these beautiful and sweet Basset gals! Thank you John, Pam and Kathleen !! (I will be posting more photos of these families and their dogs on the testimonial pages soon.  You can see Molly and Maggie there now...wow have they grown into big girls !!)

We believe in giving puppies lots of love and personal attention.  My daughter, Rosalie is in the whelping box loving on puppies in this photo.  We had lots of puppies to love last fall and lots of busy work with them all so no time for blogging !!

I can't believe that I have not done a blog since Sept.  WOW it was a very busy puppy season last fall.  You can see all the puppy photos by clicking the link to the flickr site on my home page.  We were thrilled to have gorgeous Grundy pups and wonderful families who chose them to be their own. Watch for new testimonials to be posted this month and lots of updates on our sweet Bassets (new photos and info. to come). Working on this while I am on a puppy break before our 2012 pups start coming !!

Annabelle is expressing how we all feel about the extreme heat wave of summer 2011 !!  We had 72 days of over 100 degree heat from June-August, several days at 110 and over!          
The Bassets spent all day in cool pools, hosed down, in the shade and finally in August we discovered misting hoses...these were really a saving grace !!  Amazing how much they cool down the temperature even in the shade !!  

This is the most expensive piece of jewelry I have every owned.
The "BHG" gemstone in the necklace cost $841.00     
"what is a BHG gemstone?"
It is a Basset Hound Digested gemstone!
It is 3 inches in diameter and weighs about 2 oz. and yes,
our Basset Estella ATE it!
How is that possible? Just what we asked our vet. The esophagus can push down something bigger than the opening of the stomach but then it cannot pass into the intestines (opening is too small) so it stays inside the stomach and rolls around like the inside of a rock tumbler
the  rock is very smooth !!

My hubby and I returned from a mini vacation and the next day Estella was vomiting blood so off to the vet where the xray showed the huge rock. Our vet suspects that Estella was very nervous and anxious about our being gone (daughters took care of the dogs) and ate the rock due to anxiety. Here she is chilling after surgery.

Incision into her stomach. Dogs can eat all kinds of things. At Petplace.com it lists the top 10 items surgically removed from pets as: socks, underwear,
rocks,balls, chew toys, corncobs, bones, hairties & ribbons and sticks. Usual cost for surgery is $800-$1700 so I guess our rock/gem was a bargain. Don't ask Estella !!

Today is day 21 of temperatures over 100 degrees here in Forney, Tx..  It is HOT and since we cannot have all 17 dogs inside we must work hard to keep everyone outside cool with shade, shadecloth on our pens, hosing off and 7 wading pools !!  Otis is very, very happy in the pool as you can see !!  He is one very chilled slug of a Basset !!

But what determines if a Basset is a real pool dog??? Almost all of ours like the pool but some of them ADORE the pool. We began to notice some genetic trends....is pool love an heriditary trait??  This is Angel, Otis and Hazel's mom.  She stays in the pool all day!! (although right now is inside the house with her puppies).

This is Wally.  Notice how dirty his pool water is.  As noted in a previous blog, Wally is so obsessed with the pools that he MUST swim in every one of them daily and then roll in the dirt...thus the nice clean water you see. Wally also puts his nose and head UNDER the water and swims around !!  He is the dad of Otis & Hazel !!

These are Hazel and Otis, the children of Angel and Wally. The very first time we got the pools out they both jumped in !! They had never even SEEN pools before.  I think this proves that "pool love or pool obsession" is an inherited trait.  Both of these babies love the water and Otis like his Dad, Wally, stays in the pool all day long !!  Cool pool Bassets !!

Couldn't get a good photo of Grundy in the pool. He came into our Basset family last December and we didn't know about his "pool preference" or pool genetics but he jumped right in and loves the pools too. He likes to lay down and put his face in also. I look forward to hearing from Blessed Basset families about how his puppies like the pool...genetics? 

Our shade is on one side of the yard in the morning and on the other side in the late afternoon and evening so we shift our dogs around all day....and constantly refill the pools and drinking buckets with cold water.  It gets hot fast when it is 105 degrees !!  But they are all doing well just lazing around and chilling in the pools.

We do have some lovely shade in the early morning hours when it is only about 85 degrees.   Last week we saw a coyote come up pretty close to our dog pens but when the dogs barked it left.  The wildlife out here is suffering from the heat and looking for water.  We have a racoon pack of 4 on our front porch every night ! Hope you are all staying cool and keeping your doggies cool too.

Remember in this heat to please keep an eye on your dogs. Bring them inside if possible. If not, be sure that their water dishes have cool water that will stay cool (in shade and not in a metal container).  Be sure they cannot dump out or knock over their water container and be without water (our buckets are hooked to the fence). Put out pools if possible and be sure they have shade. Check on them regularly or have neighbors check if you are gone and unable to do so. You can also hose them down with cool water to help them stay cool. Keep them safe !!

As I said in the post below I am way behind on major events in the lives of the Blessed Bassets.  Sometimes thing happen that take a while to process and be able to share.  In Dec., our precious Rudy was diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lympthatic Leukemia).  It is a very, very aggressive form of cancer that even chemo. would not cure.  We treated Rudy with medications and the vet did not expect him to live more than one week but Rudy lived well for 2 1/2 months and died just three weeks ago.  I am posting only one photo here but please see the memorial page for more on Rudy. We are heartbroken because even with so many Bassets we love them each individually and they are our Basset family and Rudy was one very special guy and he is greatly missed !!  
   Also in Dec. for the first time ever we had two precious puppies (9 months old) returned to us due to a family crisis.  Otis and Hazel are totally attached to each other and after a week back home with us it was evident that they were here to stay.  We also added Grundy to our Basset family at the end of December.  You can see all of these sweeties by clicking the Our Dogs tab.  So the last few months have brought a lot of change to our Basset family...some happy and some sad !!  We are so thankful for each of the precious Bassets we have and their very individual personalities and attachments to us!!  It is our goal to be great family and caretakers of them right down to their last day !! 

Rudy, Precious and Dinah in half of the dog room in the whelping box.

Wally with his children, Otis and Hazel in the other half of dog room in the whelping box.

Grundy, Angel and Phoebe in the utility room.

Annabelle and her daughter, Sunshine,  the pregnant gals in the tiny half bathroom.