adjustments

I realize there is a time of adjustment for Alice to get use to us and to our home. She came from a breeder in Hastings, NY. No, not of bassets but of golden labs I found that a little strange but here is the story we were given. They raised golden labs, their teenage daughter wanted a basset hound puppy. They finally got her one and then she wanted to breed her. A year ago, Alice had 11 puppies, they kept one and then their daughter lost interest in both Alice and her puppy. There were getting rid of both of them.

Alice was crate trained. Yes, that is good but she was never a house dog. When she was not outside (200 acres where she could run free) she was in the crate. Getting use to being inside is hard for her. At first, she wanted inside until you let her out, when she wanted to be inside again. She is a counter surfer (3 of our other bassets were as well) and she is a Houdini wannabe. She escaped through the spindles on the front gate when Matt and I had her on the front porch with us. She had no collar on and Matt and I were barefoot as we chased her through the neighborhood so I had to carry her home. Other than that she has been very good. Well, she does seem to have a paper fetish and rips up every scrap of paper she finds.

She follows me around all day. It has only been in the past few months that Matt has stopped following me to the bathroom, now Alice does. I have finally stopped Matt from unrolling the toilet paper but yes, you guessed it, Alice now does. What really surprised me was when she came running into the bathroom after pushing open the door and jumped right on my lap!

All in all, she is a very sweet girl. She adores Matt and he always wants to be with her. We walk her a couple times a day and he takes a turn holding the leash. For never having been on leash other than when she went to the vets, she walks pretty well, even for Matt. She still has not barked, PTL.