It brought terror to my heart when I lost my bassets in the bush.  They were there one minute and gone the next.  For bassets that can move at snail pace they can move remarkably fast.  To this day I never know what the bassets were thinking when they high tailed away in a blink of an eye.  I forgave them both when I heard big basset barking in response to my cries and whistles as I’m sure they were as frightened as I was.  Reminded me of when I lost my mum in a shop and I stood still and just screamed until she came running.

Today I thought I was reliving the nightmare of losing my hounds.  Or to be precise hound.  I had little basset at my heal but all of a sudden I realised that big basset wasn’t there.  He was gone.

Since I got back from being in Auckland the hounds have been a handful.  I have come to appreciate that this is payback time for going away and leaving them.

Two days in a row little basset has taken himself off to roll in something disgusting.  And I mean disgusting.  Unpalatable, smelly, gag inducing disgusting things.  The sort of things that leave him first sitting on the veranda and then being hauled into the shower to clean off the grossness.  Mason does of course have previous experience of rolling around in grossness.  This week he has surpassed himself.  As has big basset.

For Fortnum has taken to disappearing.  I know that he is secure in our backyard with full fencing so there is no way out.  But this has not stopped me worrying when he has extended sniffing adventures.  Also, he has previous crimes around the chicken house that make me much more cautious about him being away from the house on the own.  Despite my worst fears he has just taken to sniffing holes and probably a few gross things that I’d rather not think about. But today he disappeared out on our walk and once again my heart was in my mouth.

Trying hard not to panic that my basset might have wandered off I looked around again.  And there he was, lost against the background of dead fern leaves.  Waiting patiently for Mason and I to join him along the path.  There is no doubt that he was up to no good – there is nothing like an innocent basset when it comes to disappearing, even if he has just merged into the background rather than being lost.

I don’t know how long it will take before the bassets realise I’m back home.  Also, that when I do go away I’m coming back and there is absolutely no need to punish me quite like they have this week.  You’ve got to love them though – except when they are covered in unmentionable things.