On Christmas Eve 2009, the Basset Kindgom of North America, a basset hound rescue group from California, conducted what is believed to be the largest basset hound rescue of all time… 61 basset hounds were rescued and eventually given to good foster and permanent homes. Click Here for the Link
Daphneyland Basset Hound Rescue Voluteer at Work
According to the AP, the recession and the economy is threatening the survival of the nation’s largest basset hound rescue group.
Donations to Daphneyland have never been so low, bills so overdue and the availability of volunteers been so low, according to Dawn Smith, Daphneyland’s owner and founder.
According to Smith the rescue group is bringing in about $5,200 month. They need $10,000 to survive, according to Smith.
Animal rescues and shelters have suffered, particularly in states hit hard by the real estate bust, such as California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida.
At Daphneyland, according the Smith, the mortgage is only a month and a half behind, so they are not in danger of foreclosure. The food and vet bills are always the first to be paid. The electric bill is about $1,500 a month. Because it takes a electricity to run the well, when the electrical goes out, so does the water.
On November 3, Smith’s bill was $7,500 past due and the utility turned off the power. After two hours on the phone, $3,000 and a payment plan, the electrical was restored.
Unless adoptions pick up, donations increase or grants become more easily available, Smith doesn’t know what they or other rescue groups are going to do.
Of course this goes back to a much bigger problem. Wouldn’t it be nice if more people were responsible pet owners and got the pets spayed or neutered? Then there would be no need for shelters and rescue groups. Pet overpopulation wouldn’t be a problem. But, that’s another blog for another time.
If you would like to contact Daphneyland to make a donation during this very critical time for Daphneyland, visit their website at http://www.daphneyland.com.
A link to this story from the AP is located at http://bit.ly/nwmtO
From time to time throughout this blog we are going to be covering the lives of some famous basset hounds. This is our first post in this series.
Remember the ABC-TV show Coach? Luther Van Dam (Jerry Van Dyke), assistant coach under head coach Hayden Fox, owned a basset hound named Quincy. Quincy’s job was to pretty much sit, do nothing and be pulled in a red wagon– because he was too lazy to walk. He was Coach Van Dam’s pride and joy!
Quincy’s real name was Issac, a veteran performer who appeared in a recurring roll in the daytime soap opera Santa Barbara and in several Purina dog food commercials.
Issac was owned and trained by Cheryl Shawver who reported that Issac “was chosen for the part because he was not pretty”. Issac died during production of the series and was replaced for a short period of time before he was written out of the show during a funeral episode.
It’s that time of year again and Lilly, our basset hound puppy wishes everyone a Happy Halloween! Dressed in her costume, Lilly is ready to practice safe trick or treating… and she wants you to do the same.
Happy Halloween from our basset hound Lilly
Got home after a long day at work the other evening and sat myself down to a nice cold beverage. Got to talking to my wife about the events of the day for several minutes and noticed that I had seen my labrador and dachshund roaming around the house, but I hadn’t seen Lilly, our basset hound?. I asked my wife if she had seen her and she said “Oh she’s probably in the back yard”. Went to look in the backyard and she was nowhere to be found. Looked in the house, again she was nowhere. Now I began to panic.
I went out into the front yard and started calling Lilly’s name. Within 30 seconds, a teenage asked “Are you looking for your dog?” I replied yes and asked if she had seen a basset hound puppy. Right around the corner comes her friend carry Lilly in his arms. “My dog got hit by a car a few weeks ago. I didn’t want it to happen to this little one”.
I profusely thanked them for returning Lilly. The two teens had found her about a block away! She was safe and sound, thank goodness!
My family and I have no idea how she escaped. We suspect that she ran out the front door when I came in the house from work. We are now in the process of getting her a dog tag on her collar. When she’s older we will look at implanting a chip.
Bottom line… a potential tragedy was avoided.
One thing we’ve noticed with our Lilly, our basset hound puppy, is that she loves to play rough. It doesn’t matter how big, strong or tough you are, she will play rough. Our 50 pound white Labrador, Nala is no exception.
Take a look at the video below and you’ll know what I mean!
Last Friday, my wife came home from work to find our basset hound Lilly not looking too well. She looked kind of puny and weak. In fact her eyes seemed to be rolling in the back of her head. It looked very scary and really alarmed us. After looking around we found out that she had vomited a time or two throughout the house. This didn’t look good.
We called our veterinarian’s office and they instructed us to bring her in immediately. Our vet felt her stomach, drew blood and took her temperature. Everything was normal. Our vet suspected that she must have ate a bug or something and got a little nausea. He gave her a shot to help prevent the vomiting, sent us home and instructed us to monitor her the rest of the day. If the symptoms continued, we were to bring her in the next morning.
Good news! As soon as we got home, Lilly pepped up, went straight to her feeding bowl and pigged out! She was looking and feeling better and back to her usual silly self.
Now to get rid of some of those bugs in the backyard…
It’s been about a month now and Lilly seems to have settled into her new home just fine and getting along with her new “sisters” Macy (a dachshund) and Nalla (a yellow labrador). With the fun and playfulness comes everybody’s favorite “doody”, house training.
So far the house training has been fairly painless, I believe thanks in part to our current two dogs who are already house trained. Went it comes “potty” time, Macy and Nalla simply go out the pet door and do their thing. Lilly simply follows them out and does her thing as well. Kind of a “monkey see, monkey do” type learning environment.
Every morning we let the dogs out in our backyard to take care of their business. Again, Lilly simply follows Macy and Nalla outside and knows that it’s potty time. It seems to help to have other dogs who are more experienced in their “doody” be the puppy’s “mentor” and Lilly has two of them!
Of course there has been the occasional “accident” from time to time, but nothing to really fret about. As in any dog, house training a basset hound takes practice and patience.
This is our new basset hound puppy Lilly. We’ve only had her for about a week, but she has been a joy to our family. She is five weeks old and of course, still a baby. She has seemed to adjust to her new living quarters just fine and loves to play with our labrador. I believe the lab, whose name is Nala, seems to think Lilly is her “baby.” They play together all the time. We have to remind Nala to take it easy from time to time. She’s 65 pounds, but the basset puppy is only about 5 pounds!
However, with six year our dachshund, Macey, it’s a totally different matter. Macey is very shy and doesn’t want anything to do with her. Dachshunds by nature are very territorial and jealous. She reacted the same way we got Nala about a year ago, but now Nala and her get along just fine.
Our hope with this blog is to journal our experiences with our new bundle of joy. We are told basset hounds are very lovable dogs. This is our first one and we are looking forward to what we hope are many years together. We will be updating this blog every few days sharing with everyone our experiences with Lilly, both good and “challenging”. Please be sure to check back often.
Wayne the “Hound Owner”