[J3w3ll3r]

Hi all

We are family of 3 living in Essex, we lost our beloved Douge de Bordeux in June 2014, which coincided with the birth of our daughter so we have waited 6 years for the time to be right. We are a dog lovers and now looking to add to our family

Whilst we adore DDBs they come with certain drawbacks ie 72kg of slobbering fur, and 4 sized 14 feet to clear up after

So we began our search for our new hound, we started with Bulldog (breathing to bad) then French Bull Dog (everyone's got them) Boston terrier (2 small and strange looking) then we looked closely at a Dachshund (but again too small) and then we decided on the Basset, since then we have watched hours of videos and read pages and pages of info, mostly telling us why we should not get one but everything about a Basset seems perfect for us and most of the bd traits can be found in a DDB so we are hoping we wont have to many surprises

My main 2 concerns are that we live in a town house and I have 3 garden rabbits that we adore, the rabbits are kept securely enclosed and my wife is very good with animals and will take charge of training from day one, i know this as i have been very well trained too......and the stairs will only be climbed at bedtime as we live on the ground floor 90% of the time

We are lucky that our front garden connects to the main park and nature reserve in our town so there is plenty of places to walk and my wife now works from home and we are pretty sure thus will become a permanent feature

So I will be lurking about here for the foreseeable future having a read to make sure we are doing the right thing and that we will be as best prepared as possible before we take the plunge

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

Kindest regards

Stephen

 

[marta5]

Congratulations for join at this forum and welcome.

 

[Lorelaisowner]

I’m a new basset owner, but I don’t regret getting a basset. I hope to have more in the future once I tackle this one’s problems. Stubborn and hard to train seems to be my issues, unlike the other breed I had in the past- a Catahoula. As far as positives go, I would say that she is absolutely adorable, a great companion, silly, and good for my mental health. She’s also a good alert dog, and I do like that about her. Basset hounds seem to be smarter than other dogs- maybe that’s just me. But I like that my basset picks up phrases almost instantaneously and understands what I want. My dog seems to know more commands than the last breed I had.

You can always look at the negatives, but if you’re willing to put in the time and effort I don’t think you’ll regret the breed you’ve chosen. I see a lot of negatives with this breed, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t choose my dog again or even own another basset in the future. In fact, I would like own many more!

 

[TeazelsMum]

First of all, if you are in the UK which I think you are?, wait. Right now, prices have gone through the roof and although you'll find reputable breeders have curtailed their breeding plans for now, BYBs are cashing in on the fact there just aren't as many puppies around. So even if you can afford the often £2K being asked for often un-KC registered puppies, you'll be buying into a potential disaster and lining the pockets of these BYBs.

That being said, as always, you need to go visit (when you can!) a breeder, meet them face to face (this is an important relationship going forward) and see mum with her litter. You may not see dad if they have used an 'outside' stud dog. But again, they should have photos of him.

Bassets have a reputation for being stubborn. Not so! When you get stubborn, you have to change direction with your training. The secret to a good rapport with your hound is to make them think what you want, was their idea!! You will get nowhere if you back them into a corner. And with some more sensitive sorts, this may even lead to fear-biting. If the young hound doesn't understand or can't cope with what you are asking of him, he will 'shut down'. Once you have mutual respect there, you'll find you have a loving willing friend. You will, from my experience, find the boys, in adulthood, are more needy than the bitches (sound familiar!). We started with males, the first bought from the famous Fredwell kennel and that poor boy was the one we learnt on!! After about 10 months our second male joined us - he from a friend who I'd met via the London and Northern Counties branch of the BHC. She had a lovely boy she was showing and I persuaded her to do a repeat mating and she let me have pick of the males. He was mainly from the Fredwell lines. And so it began.

We owned, showed, bred and once back in the UK, judged the breed. We did a lot of our Basset activities in Canada during our almost 15 years out there. There is no othr breed for me - although towards the end of our line, I decided I needed something taller and lighter in my old age, and bought a Whippet. She's lovely, but she's not a Basset so we've spent the past 10+ years with our dearly missed buy in boy who we had to say goodbye to at the end of April after he went off his back legs. He had a ton of other problems over recent years and although he was only 10.5 years, he'd obviously had enough.

Good luck with your puppy, when you find the right one for you. Provided you find an established experienced Basset breeder, they should give you all the dos and don'ts with the breed. Like stairs - and exercising too much too soon. And feeding (this is a breed prone to GDV (Bloat).