toula proving yet agan her Indian name is Crazy Eye

Costco would be wise to decline this picture as advertisement for their dog beds.

Or, perhaps embrace it (there's no such thing as bad advertising, right?). A new ad campaign titled, "Your dog will love its bed so much, it will be crazy about it!*"

*meaning, certifiably insane. Some insanity limitations apply.

hover hound

It's official: Molly's knee seems to have healed, at least enough to allow her to have some fun. Yesterday we took her to the dog park, and after wandering around sniffing for about 15 minutes, leading us to believe she really wasn't up for a party, she suddenly shot off after the other dogs in a Basset Burst of speed! I captured one of these pshooooo! events with my Treo phone and had to share it here.

If you look closely, you can see all her paws are off the ground. She doesn't normally get this animated unless there's ham or a cookie bone involved, so this was a red letter day. Next time we go on a "grunt/drag" I'll have to remind her of this episode....

she's baaaaaack.

Yesterday I was able to get Molly to join Toula and me on our first walk together as a threesome since the infamous Easter Day Beach Wounding in which Molly threw herself with abandon into the sea and tweaked her knee.

Took this with my Treo on our walk last night, and I must say I'm amazed that the phone can capture the waggy tail movement of the lowdogs. They are perpetually happy, thus constantly wagging, which makes it all the more important that we maintain a lowdog household forever. Because there are only so many glasses of wine that can be wagged off your coffee table before you realize Bassets are the Chosen Dogs.

basset, party of one

Yesterday's beach jaunt proved to be too much for Molly's bad knee, the one which tells her when it's going to rain, and that she uses as an excuse to pee in the house just 4" from the dog door. She's been gimping around the house, poor thing, so we've been medicating her with love and baby aspirins.

Toula, however, is raring to go, so to prevent the typical 8pm energy burst, D. and I concocted and executed a Brilliant Plan to get Toula out for a walk with Molly none the wiser.

D. went to his office, Molly followed. I went to our bedroom, Toula followed. This typical behavior allowed us to close Molly in to the office, and Toula and I slipped out the front door. Seconds later, Molly was snoring loudly and Toula and I were free! Free, I tell you!

Walking this brown dog today reminded me what a joy it is to own a dog. Walks with Molly on the lead are usually more like "Grunt/Drags". Alone with Toula it was an actual Dog-Whisperer- style walk, with occasional stops for sniffing, but 98% an actual walk. She walks proudly, prancing with her tail and ears at alert. We took a long tour through the wooded trails and met other dogs which Toula politely greeted. Had Molly been with us, meeting another dog would have been a cartoonish yank, ending up with me off my feet, being dragged down the trail, dirt collecting down the front of my shirt and hitting every stone with my chin.

I took this shot of Toula on the walk with my Treo phone. Do you see how the angelic nature of Toula's behavior is memorialized by the corona in the background? Do you hear the Basset Angels singing? Hallelooo-arooooh! *sigh*

Of course, D. would totally disagree with me, thinking that Molly is the more angelic of the two. He is hopelessly in love with her, as, frankly, he should be, because she's an old soul and sweet and yummy, and she smells exactly like Fritos Corn Chips. No, seriously. But this is my blog, so I can wax poetic about Toula if I want to. So there.

At the end of the trail you actually walk through an area that is sort of trail, sort of these people's back yard. They know it, so to keep folks from walking up to their back window, knocking, and asking what's for dinner, they carved out a little walkway from stones going away from the house, and tossed in some seating areas and general yard tchotchke art. We stopped to gaze in the gazing ball, and dream of the next time we'll get to walk just the two of us.

Well, I did. Toula just dreamed of ham.