Miss Snickers

Hello all! My name is Brenda, and my husband and I became the proud parents of Snickers Marie in July 2009! This is the second dog I have ever had (first Basset), we lost our beloved Yellow lab/ Golden mix last July, just after his 9th birthday, due to heart problems. Let me tell you, these two are like night and day!!!!
Our journey started a few days after Stimpy's passing.. my husband and I were on vacation that week, and after he was VERY adamate about the "no more dogs" clause, I found him one evening doing research on the internet. So I came in and sat down next to him to see what he was searching for... A DOG!!! We both agreed that we wanted something slightly smaller (Stimp was 80 lbs) and I really wanted a female.. heard they were easier to train (liars!!!) Well after researching some breeds, we decided to let it rest, cause we had an overnight trip planned for the next day. During our trip there were some tears shed, but mostly talks about our future "baby". Later on that week, we stopped at our local shelter.. we had been bouncing the shelter/ purchase idea back and forth, when we walked by a pen and all the sudden this Basset came bouncing through the outside run door, My husband stopped dead in his tracks and said "that's it, that's the dog for us!" But sadly when we went to inquire about her, someone had already did the paperwork to adopt her... they just finished filling out the papers 5 mins. before Well, as luck would have it, we were paying my grandparents a visit that evening when I was reading the paper, and in the ads there was one saying about Basset puppies, I said something to my hubby, but he was so busy chatting he didn't hear me. So the next day I bought a local paper, and my hubby was looking throgh the ads. When he was done I asked "so wha'd ya find" and he said "look for yourself" so I did and then said "those Bassets are still in there, do you want me to call tomorrow?" (it was Sun.) He said "sure" So I called the next day, and they woman said she had a litter of 8 split down the middle (4/f 4/m) I told her I would discuss it with my Husband and call her back later. So I went home and we went back and forth.. we kept saying "what do you want to do?" So finally I called the woman back and had her give me directions. When we arrived these 4 little girls came running up, 3 of them sniffed us and went about playing with each other, one kept nibbling on my toes... guess which one came home with us! And so began the journey with our beautiful tri colored baby Basset.
It has NOT been easy, we have our good and bad days. Potty training was (and still is) a disaster. We went through many rounds of shots, deworming, spaying, ear cleanings, and torn cartliage in the knee....BUT I LOVE MY LITTLE GIRL TO DEATH!!!! She is the light of my life, and brings such joy to us, and everyone she meets! I have been promoting this breed to everyone that is looking for a new pup, and found it amazing how many people in my area own, or have owned a Basset and how they all say that it's an incredible breed!
Thanks for reading my story, and we look forward to making new friends!

Mikey T

I think it is important every new to the breed to understand that the breed in general is hard to potty train, much more difficult than the average breed. Many have their therories mine centers on the fact that I think they are much slower ar gaining spincter control than other breeds so simply are not capable of the control of other breeds eairly one. But that lack of control unless rigourously managed to prevent accidents creates a history of accidents that even more difficulties. So in general I do not think it is possible to have a truely Housetrained ( differs signifacntly from a dog that does not have accidents) basset before the age of six months an typical is a year or more.

Basset lack the bidable (willingness to please) gene that is common in so called easier to train breeds. Many more traditional training methods rely heavily on bidability to train hence the reputation of basset as difficult to train. The secret to training a basset is making what you want then to do and what is their best interest as they percieve it the same. This often envolves food or the percieved notion that food could be had.

If you were trying to train a Male basset you might be changing your tune, Actually the ease or hardness to train has many factors all much more signifcant than sex.

Yogi's Mom

Welcome! Sorry to hear you lost Stimpy. So hard to lose our dear friends.
Glad you found your wonderful girl, Snickers!

Miss Snickers

Thanks for the insight Mikey... Makes me feel better! Sometimes it's difficult, cause I feel like a failure. I have heard they can be VERY stubborn, and that doesn't help when we ourselves (hubby and I) can be stubborn. But she is definitely worth EVERY gray hair LOL!
Just getting so sick of cabin fever, we went for our first walk in like 2 weeks.. was almost like it was the first time she ever went for one But we did meet 2 new friends... only 19 more days till spring????? CAN NOT WAIT!!!!!

gsally

Wow, I'm just over the mountain from you in Annville, PA, 13 miles east of Hershey. We don't have many bassets in our area and since I've been hunting for a new one, I've had a hard time finding any in Leb/Lanc/Dauphin Co., so I'm surprised to hear you say there are lots of basset owners in Middletown PA. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places. As for potty training, we were warned by our VET that we'd have a hard time training our female.............guess what?, he was wrong. She was actually quite easy. We had three children at home at the time, between the five of us taking turns to take her out very frequently, she caught on pretty quickly. Maybe we were lucky, we'll see with the next one, when we finally find her!

ChelseaBraelynn

I am about 2 hours from Hershey PA, in Delaware! I had a female basset for 17 yrs, she passed away this past summer. Have had a half basset/half pug for 11 years. (yes, I know weird combo..my brother had a pug who had an affair with her new male basset neighbor. LOL) Now I also have a 12 week old female basset. Found her from a home breeder here in Delaware. Anyhow- we are also lucky we happen to have enough people home through out the day, to let her out very often. So far, after 2 weeks she's been having maybe one accident every other day. Usually it can be blamed on not letting her out right away after she wakes up from a nap, etc. Working on letting us know she needs to go out..and/or holding it longer. =)

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Donna
Mommy to:
Chelsea Braelynn (Basset, born 12/1/09)
Shadow (Pug-Basset Mix, Born 10/15/98)

Calvin's Dad

Our basset passed away 8/08 and not a day goes by that I don't think of him. They are truly an excellent breed. Just like Snickers, Calvin chose my wife and I the same way. Don't worry. They are trainable and can be housebroken. Just give them daily walks, play with them, cuddle them, tell them you love them and I am sure Snickers will turn out to be the best dog you ever had.

Josie's Dad

I hope to take my little Josie to a park this weekend to walk around and try to get a bit of socializing in. She's not used to walking on the leesh yet (being only 12 weeks). She kind of jumps around and scratches at her collar.

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When Josie comes home...it's so good!

Miss Snickers

Yeah, we have a few dog parks in our area, and I love taking her for walks at a local park, that has a very long trail. She still is a little squirrely with the leash, but I blame that on lack of walks. It's been a ROUGH winter.. with the snow, her surgery, and her 2 week downtime due to torn cartilage in her knee. Right now trying to be patient with potty training... sometimes I think she does it to spite us. Right now as I'm typing, my Husband is fighting a losing battle w/her, she had an accident, and my husband just asked her, "what's this" her response....a nice long howling session! Made me giggle! She is so sassy, it's so hard to be firm with her, she makes me laugh.
Hopefully spring will mean a new beginning, and the end of "terror puppy" LOL!

vb3

I wouldn't hold my breath, Rosco's terror puppy lives on well into 11 months...