Although I’ve lugged my camera with me on our daily walks, it’s felt like an age since I last took time to photograph the bassets.  It was of course the perfect excuse to avoid getting back to the office to do some work.  With glorious morning light and an open field it was a perfect setting to put Fortnum and Mason through their paces.

In my dreams.  Bassets are creatures of habit with a determination and strength of character to do things their way.  Since this is what I love most about them it made sense just to follow their usual pattern of behaviours.

It is usually Little Basset takes the lead, especially going up hill as Fortnum is the bigger dog and struggles to keep up.

Here Mason is at the top of the slope before Big Basset has started on his way up.  Awesome light makes this small slope look like something more significant.

What you can be sure about is that where there are smells to be sniffed this is very much a joint basset activity. This is a regular sniff just looking for a scent.  Big Basset can be easily distracted till he finds one.

When they have found a scent their instincts kick in and will follow that trail regardless of anything I might say and do.  This is what you might call serious sniffing that requires them to dig deep and confer on what they find.

Even when it’s time to go they don’t give up easily but insist on sniffing those last smells before dragging themselves away from their favourite thing.

You can be sure that with a wide open field there is plenty of running to be done. Running and playing.  Running and big basset shouting at Mason so loudly that it almost blows your ears off and wakes the neighbours up.

There is no doubt that bassets and running is not the most attractive thing.  But I love them for it.

And when all the running gets too exhausting Fortnum will return to his first love – posing and sniffing.

Whereas Fortnum loves to run away from the camera but I wasn’t letting him off that easily.

For all my new photography learning adventures there is something deeply comforting to be following my basset boys with my camera.  They are the clowns that make me smile day in day out.  It’s a reminder that I should do it more often.  So watch out, basset blogging is back big time!