THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 11, 1995 TAG: 9509110036
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Long before one reached the scene Sunday of the Fourth Annual East Coast Basset Blast at Red Wing Park in Virginia Beach, one heard it.
Nothing is as riveting as a basset hound's full-throated bark - oh, a lion's roar, maybe - but a joyous basset chorus issued from a grove near the parking lot.
One hastened one's step at the summons. And came upon 164 bassets milling about, all sizes in various patterns and shades of brown, white and black, and all with flop ears and tails wagging as if the whole world was a-wag.
Most remarkable of all, there wasn't a dogfight among the lot. Offhand, I can't think of any other canine breed of such a uniformly happy outlook on life.
Nor did a single fistfight break out among the owners. Upon viewing the doleful eyes, carpenter's bench legs, and the laughing mouth of a basset, one feels at peace.
One basset owner feels a bond of sympathy for another who will encumber himself or herself with so eccentric a being as a basset.
Well, only one basset there bit, smallish Bernie who is being adopted by Joe and Theresa Preston, officials of the Basset Hound Rescue League.
Bernie was with another basset, Huey. The Prestons have two others, Arthur and Roscoe, at home.
Does Bernie bite Huey? I asked.
``Oh, no,'' said Theresa, shocked at the notion.
Then who does he nip?
``Whoever wakes him up from his nap.''
``As well he might!'' I said.
Many a person snarls upon being snatched from a nap. I do.
``Bernie's my favorite one,'' Theresa said. ``He so needs affection. He's just a fear biter. He has been in six foster homes.''
She wonders what in his past warped his placid Basset nature.
The Rescue League, staffed by volunteers, usually has 20 to 30 bassets up for adoption. Anyone interested in offering a basset a spot by the fireplace may write to the Basset Hound Rescue League, P.O. Box 44201, Fort Washington, Md. 20744, or call (301) 292-3021. Contributions are welcome.
Bassets are of two tenses, active and passive. Frank Bowers, general manager of Cox Communications, and his wife, Jackie, of Virginia Beach said they once owned a passive female basset, Sneakers. Females of any breed tend to be reasoning creatures.
Their previous basset, Barney, was a rogue male, always wandering with a hungry heart, or stomach, around Lenox, Mass.
``He was a climber,'' Frank recalled. ``We were told a 4-foot-high fence would hold him. It didn't. We made it higher and higher, and he kept climbing.''
One day, Barney escaped for three days. Even the police joined the chase when he burgled a meat market.
First reports placed him at a veterans home - bassets tend to gravitate to those who are of a mind to pet them - and next, he was spotted at the meat market.
Opening his shop one morning, the butcher failed to see the basset at his heels. Arranging cuts at one of his meat bins, he glanced up and saw Barney in the other end devouring hot dogs.
Barney leaped from the bin and out the door. He reappeared at the home of a man who harbored strays. There, his grateful owners found him.
One cannot long be angry with a basset. Every feature in its makeup is humorous. He or she is a living cartoon of a dog at which one cannot but smile.
Surely, the Lord, when he made bassets on the sixth day, was in need of something to cheer the world. ILLUSTRATION: VICKI CRONIS
Staff
Tom Maxey coaxes Gary, 3, to perform his only trick during the
best-trick competition at the Fourth Annual East Coast Basset Blast.
Gary was supposed to play dead as Maxey pretended to shoot him.
VICKI CRONIS
Staff
[Color Photo]
Miss New Jersey shows off her crown Sunday at the Fourth Annual East
Coast Basset Blast at Red Wing Park in Virginia Beach. She was
waiting for the costume competition to begin.
by CNB