I'm ready to kill our basset hound, and I might try to do so if it hadn't been made clear to me over the past eighteen months that it's impossible to actually harm a basset hound. They're impervious to pain, they have no concept of "no," and based on some of the situations I've seen Chester get himself into over the last year and a half, they seem to be indestructible.

Here's what happened.

Wendy and I watched an old John Wayne movie last night after the kids got to bed, and decided afterward that it was too warm and gorgeous a night to let pass by without sitting on the porch and sipping a beer. While we were enjoying our beer, Chester was in an absolute frenzy for some reason. He was running around the house, running back to us, barking his head off and trying desperately to tell us something.

I'd have investigated, but some of the terribly urgent situations that Chester has tried to alert me to in the past have included the following:

• "The neighbors are getting laundry out of their car!"


• "There's a cat just outside the fence!"


• "There's a rock just outside the fence!"


• There's air just outside the fence!"

So I ignored him.

But when we came in and decided to get ready for bed, Chester was still absolutely all to hell.


A little background on the two dogs might be relevant. Tilda, our brittany, is going on five years old. Tilda is a registered purebred Brittany and she's a bit ostentatious. She's been fixed and she's generally disinterested in most things that happen outside the fence. Tilda sleeps beside our bed and, if she had her way, that's what she'd do most of the time. Chester, our basset hound, is almost two years old and has not been fixed. We tell ourselves that maybe we'll breed him someday. He is the most stubborn dog I've ever seen. He refuses to sleep anywhere other than one of two places: My recliner or his crate. Since he's been known to leave "surprises" in the living room if he's trusted to spend time there by himself, we have him sleep in his crate at night.

But Chester refused to sleep in his crate last night. Wendy put him in his crate and he sat and barked and barked and barked. After a short while we decided that he probably had to go to the bathroom again, so Wendy let him back outside. Once out there, he sat at the back fence and barked and barked and barked and barked.

I decided to get the flash light and go see what was going on. Heck, maybe this time something serious was in the works. Maybe something was really wrong. Once I got outside, I figured out what was up pretty quickly. See, on the other side of my back yard there's a vacant lot with a creek that cuts through it. Beyond that is my neighbor's house, and my neighbor keeps hounds. Coonhounds. He hunts with them and he breeds them and, I'm pretty sure, one of his females has gone into heat.

At least, that's what I was picking up on from Chester. Now, as you can tell from the picture to the right, Chester doesn't seem to be a full-blooded basset hound. (I think his breeder was less than scrupulous.) Chester looks like he has some black-and-tan in him, and I can't help but believe that he was able somehow to pick up on love in the air, coming from the female hounds across the creek.

Chester was running along the back fence, looking toward the neighbors dogs and howling his head off. There's a Hardees about a quarter mile from here in the small town 'round the bend and I'd bet you anything that people in the parking lot could have heard him. I became convinced at that point that there had to be a female hound in heat across the creek and Chester was in the throes of passion, howling the hound equivalent of "How YOU doin'? You live around here? That collar is YOU, baby. How's about I come over to your place?"

We brought him inside and waited for him to calm down, hoping that he'd maybe fall asleep beside Tilda in our bedroom. Nothin' doin'. Wendy and I laid in bed trying desperately to fall asleep while Chester sat beside the bed barking his fool head off: "You can't keep us apart! You can't stop our love! This thing is bigger than all of us!"

Finally, we stuck his butt back in the crate where he howled for another half an hour and finally dozed off. As I write these words he's asleep about four feet from me. He seems to feel dejected. Crestfallen. Defeated. Alone.

It's amazing, really, that we had the energy this morning to get up and try a breakfast recipe that's been going around the blogosphere for a while. We got it from B13, circa Jamie Dawn (who posted it in his comments section), And Jamie Dawn got it from Alison. If you look at Jamie Dawn's picture and B13's picture, it's obvious that Wendy and I did something wrong. I'll tell you what we did wrong: For one thing, we were unpleasantly surprised to get up this morning and realize that we were out of all purpose flour. I only had bread flour and tried to make the recipe with that. It obviously makes a difference. For another thing, both B13 and Jamie Dawn doubled the cooked apples in the recipe, and we didn't have enough apples to do that. So our version of the Oven Apple Bake doesn't look quite as tasty as Jamie's and B13's … but, trust me, it was lip smackin' good.

Between Wendy and Liam and me, we almost finished it off. There is, however, a nice, big section left. I don't know who's gonna get it … but I know one hound dog who I ain't sharin' NOTHIN' with.

Labels: Humor, Personal, Recipes