Aside from their independent, stubborn and ignorant streaks, bassets are totally devoted loyal and loving creatures.  Especially when you have food in your hand.

They spend most of the week when I’m working from home lolling on the sofa in my office waiting for me to get up and do something more interesting.  Especially get them something to eat. I can only imagine the frustration it must be to wake from a snooze to find I’m gone.  Sneaked off when they were examining the inside of their eyelids.

I can hear them stumbling off their sofa perch, shake themselves and sometimes have a quick scratch before they wander in to find me.  Only to find me turn around and go back into the office and sit down again.  So up they hop again back onto the sofa and resume their snoozing position.  Unless I’ve come back with food and then they’ll sit right by my chair and look at me adoringly and plead for me to share.

You’d think that after all that lazing about the word “walkies” would elicit an excited response.  But no.  Only “din-dins” does that.  Instead they will reluctantly accept having their collar and leads put on and then sit on the veranda to check out the weather and come to terms with the inevitable enforced activity to come.

They do of course enjoy a good walk.  Or rather a long sniff around the park.  Admittedly I usually have my arms pulled back behind me as far as my joints allow as these reluctant bassets take things at their pace and invoke their “we’re not rushing mode”.  Occasionally, very occasionally we pick up sufficient pace that warrants freedom off the lead.  And on rare occasion they can be walking ahead of me and getting demanding for me to hurry up.

When that happens I see the best of a basset – that loyalty, that love that acknowledgement that we are a pack – and for a split second – I am the leader.  I enjoy those moments for the rest of the time I am the servant. The resident chef, neck rubber and provider of a blanket on which they can sleep.

Try as you may to make sure basset hounds know the pecking order in the pack. Their hierarchy of needs beats mine hands down every time.  Food, sleep, sniff, neck rubs and the best seat on the sofa.

I found a delightful blog about bassets this week – if you don’t quite believe what I say about living with bassets you should check out the adventures of Bob and Lucy.