WHAT A FACE!!!

BASSET MADDNESS

I am SO ready to kill this basset! I guess he's still holding a grudge toward me after being left out of the family camping trip but STILL! He's been worse than ever with taking his anxiety medication and I am at my witt's end! I think he got off his schedule a little bit between the summer craziness and my frustration with him spitting them out on the floor all the time. I admit, I have been slacking off on the regimen because it's so much work. He takes 2 St. John's Wort in the morning and 2 at night and then a Melatonin just before bedtime! He has been so good when the meds are consistent but now due to the past several SLEEPLESS nights, I'm realizing what damage my slacking off has done. Mr. LEO has been waking up again randomly at 2am having panic attacks. I have been rudely awakened in the middle of a dead sleep with a drooling shaking basset hound on top of my HEAD! He doesn't just snuggle up beside me drooling and shaking, he feels the need to stand on top of my head. He will do this all night long and no matter how many times I push him off the bed, he is back up on top of my head. Eventually as terrible as it is, I have no other choice but to put him in the bathroom with a giant towel on the floor to sop up the drool puddles. This recent suffering has been a good lesson for me to get back on track with his meds. The only problem is that whatever new and creative way I think I've come up with to get those pills into his system, does not work. He has become a master at faking a swallow and storing the pills under his jowels for up to 15 minutes only to spit them out in a different room. He has chewed half of the pill at times and spit the rest out so that the powder in the capsule is all over my floor as the kitty is trying to lap it up. I have rolled the pills in meat, he has eaten the meat, extracted the pill and spit it right out on the floor. I have rolled it into cheese, he has done the same thing. I have opened the capsule, taken out the powder and dumped it into the inside of some deli meat or cheese and he spits it right out and licks all around the powder. I have shoved the pill all the way down to his tonsils, held his nose shut and rubbed his throat. This is when he fakes another swallow and sneakily slides the pill back up and somehow hides it under his gum or tongue? Last night I became so desperate that I opened his mouth WIDE and opened up a capsule inside of his mouth and dumped the powder down his throat! Boy did he HATE that. I have tried giving him his favorite treats right afterward, even sometimes before and during the pill nightmare, NOTHING has worked! My friend suggested peanut butter, she was so sure that would work wonders, well he HATES peanut butter! This has become my dreaded daily task. Given the fact that he has two pills in the morning and two at night, in addition to the quick dissolve melatonin, this is 5 times a day, I am going through this maddness. I guess when they say Basset Hounds are notorious for their stubborness, that may be the greatest understatement there is! OH LEO!!!!

Leo gets voted out of the family vacation!

Poor Leo! He's feeling so depressed these past couple of days. He was excluded from the family camping trip to Amish Country over this last weekend. He was voted out of the trip since the majority ruled and many in our family are not so keen on dealing with a basset with special needs. I, being his basset mommy, would have put up with all of his anxieties because I believed that the amish way of life would have been very soothing for LEO! I think he would have loved hanging out with the horses behind our camp site and he would have been a big fan of the amish chicken pot pie! Although he was home with his 2 kitty brothers and a wonderful aunt to care for him, he was still missing the rest of his family. His auntie told me that whenever the answering machine picked up with my voice, he would wimper and cry! When we first got back from the trip, he was hesitant to speak to me! It was very obvious that he was angry. He gave me the cold shoulder for several hours and it broke my heart. Eventually he did come around and when he did, he planted himself in my lap refusing to get down for anything. He's been glued to my side ever since. He wasn't too thrilled with the Pennsylvania T Shirt we brought home to him but he did like the Amish made dog biscuits! He has been passed out on my bed this morning while I fold all the laundry left over from the trip! He's still  a little mad at his papa for not letting him try out the new family pop up, but he says he will forgive him if he is allowed on the next great adventure! He promises to be a good boy and not pee in the pop up!

Happy Independence Day!!!

Run Away Basset

A few weeks ago, we came home to find LEO gone! We had just replaced our sliding doors in the family room, and he figured out how to open them and hit the road! And he didn't even bother stopping to close the door on his way out. This was great news for the cat, who is usually not allowed out after dark due to coyotes. He was thrilled to follow right behind LEO. Even more scary was the fact that our new little kitten was sitting right in front of the open door staring out into the blackness.   We drove all over town looking for LEO and I shed more than a few tears thinking the worst. When we finally returned home, I had a message that THANKFULLY he was safe and sound down the road at a friend's house.

When we went to retrieve our little run away, he was relaxing on their arm chair seemingly without a care in the world! He was completely unphased by our sudden appearance and acted as though I was disturbing his nap. He looked irritated when I called him a bad dog and attempted to put his leash on him. He was not the slightest bit remorseful and I almost felt like he would have been happy to stay right there never to return home again. He appeared to have already moved on, forgetting that his family ever existed. The funny thing is, the beautiful golden retriever, Bailey who lives there, was on a leash outside, yet here is LEO sprawled out on their arm chair like he owns the place! What a nerve! I can imagine that Bailey must have been pretty annoyed. I laughed when I came home to find pictures of Leo's night out posted on my facebook page. As you can see, he even left a little basset drool as a parting gift!