Basil (not the herb)

Basil is my big o' basset hound mix.  Up until his addition to my life, I had never had much experience with a hound dog.  My experience was limited to working dogs of the Dalmatian and German Shepherd variety.  Let me tell you...it is a completely different world with a hound dog.

The stately hound dog

First, he is the laziest dog I have ever met.  Were he to fill out a personality assessment, he would have to rank sleeping as his favorite past-time.  Right up there with eating everything in sight.  He could have been named Hoover but that is a story for another day.  He even puts himself to bed at 9 every night and I really have to work to get him up in the mornings to go outside.  He is like a little child who read under the covers all night long and refuses to get up for school, going through the motions of getting out of bed just long enough for the mother to leave the room and then promptly going to sleep again.  Every morning!

Next I give you sticks!  No dog toy in the world.  No smelly sock.  No slobber-saturated rob draws as much energy out of my dog as the longest stick in the back yard can.  The stick must be at least 1x the length of his body (2x is best) and slightly brittle.  This stick will produce several fun-filled moments of almost-fetch where:

1.) I throw the stick
2.) Basil chases after said stick
3.) Basil picks up stick and begins to return with it
4.) Basil stops 5 feet from you and begins breaking stick in smaller pieces
5.) I spend 5 minutes scouring the yard to find new stick to continue game 

Poor innocent stick

Third, everyone must know that walking a hound dog is a royal pain.  Every invisible scent is a trail to be followed and this stocky 55 pound low-rider has a low enough center of gravity to pull me off my balance when a scent catches his interest--every scent we encounter.  One of these days, I swear my dog will dislocate my shoulder. 

Yet, despite the times he has annoyed me, disobeyed me, or made me laugh, I know that he will...

...wait patiently for me.