Jabber Jaws

 In 2008 we adopted Jabber Jaws, who came to be known in the Mitchell House as J J.  I wanted to let you all know that J J went to the Rainbow Bridge today. He had quite a few health issues, some made worse from his neglect before he came to NTBR.  When he got up this morning he was unable to walk.  Vet said that with his back issues most likely a disc had migrated into his spinal cord.  Emergency surgery was possible, but with his age, and other health issues the most humane thing was the Rainbow Bridge option.

Doc

Doc’s Life

• Adopted from North Texas Basset Hound Rescue (NTBHR); we had our eyes on an older female, described as a couch potato; instead NTBHR asked if we’d like to check out a young, LARGE, male red/white basset with lots of energy!  We are so glad they picked him for us!!
• Doc led us to additional rescue work; we have adopted 2 other bassets (Mabel and Marvin); fostered bassets thru NTBHR; we donate monthly to ASPCA; we donate regularly to HOP (House of Puddles; a retirement community for senior bassets); we currently are fostering/adopting a non-basset shepherd mix (Bob) who has so many characteristics of a young Doc and is helping us through our grieving process.
• Doc loved all creatures (we’ve seen him crying over a salamander, a baby bird); he was shy and gentle.  He thought all humans wanted to pet him; he would be nosy wherever we walked and stop to make sure people gave him attention.  One of the funniest sights was Doc at a high school baseball game that was near some livestock.  Doc was interested in one of the longhorns; when it got up (it was HUGE)—Doc started howling so loud that it stopped the game so everyone could look at the excitement.
• Doc allowed us to adopt our second basset hound, Mabel (from our vet, Dr. Morris).  Mabel was unsocialized, had been hit by a car, had to have major orthopedic surgery; we call her our “personality disorder.” Doc was the only dog she ever loved—he let her yell at him, played gently when she wanted.  I don’t know that any other dog would have got along with her like Doc.
• Doc liked to eat!  He could be fast asleep but hear someone opening a slice of cheese (even if trying to sneak it in a different room)!  He was the BEST beggar; never aggressive, would just put his head on your knee to let you know he was interested.  He also could stealthily steal a sandwich out of your hand if you were walking away from him.  He was a “counter-cruiser” and has retrieved a whole pizza, a package of frozen rolls, a pan of baked chicken (including bones), a large box of Greenies, and a dozen cupcakes.  The latter caused acute pancreatitis.  We worked so hard to keep Doc from eating human food but sometime he won!
• Doc loved his walks.  Until the last year (when he was totally blind), Doc walked every day.  He was the pack leader.  We have so many memories.  He taught us so much—such as not taking him on a walk in too hot weather.  Doc went “flat basset”, requiring my husband to carry him almost a mile home.  Through the years, we can’t count the number of cars that drove by him and smiled, beeped their horns, stopped to tell us their basset stories.   
• Doc protected us during a Rottweiler attack; both my husband and I were knocked over; cars were stopping and calling 911; Mabel (our other basset) was hightailing it to safety, but Doc was our hero.
• Doc was popular with our son’s friends (they are now 24, 22).  He watched poker games, went to baseball games- everyone loved Doc!  I took many pictures of Doc and used them for annual presentations at work.  Doc has been a hit on Facebook and even had his own MySpace page back in the day.
• Doc could PLAY!  He loved running (the Basset 500), wrestling, howling (he and Marvin would do this a few times everyday).  An especially fun game to Doc was being chased by an acoustic guitar (by our youngest son)—it wasn’t the same with an electric guitar.
• Doc was everything good in terms of what a dog can be.  He was truly our best friend.  Greeting us every time we returned, no matter how brief, would always put a smile on our faces.  He liked to be massaged; he would always be up for a hug.  He has given us so many laughs, some worries (pancreatitis, got loose a couple times—those are long stories!!), unconditional love, and happy happy memories.  We loved him so much.

The Hightowers

Fred aka Dennis
It is with great sympathy that I am writing this letter to you. Fred took his journey to the Rainbow Bridge last night enroute to the Banfield Urgent Care facility in Fort Worth . He had a heart murmur that we were treating in anticipation of a dental cleaning and removing a skin tag on his chest. He had not been feeling well the last couple of days and last night he would just stand and look at me and was breathing very heavily. He was our silly puppy and would howl every time we called him by that name and enjoyed our walks and car rides. He left us doing one of his favorite things of riding in the car. Here is one of our favorite pictures we have of him wearing his Oakley sunglasses from our youngest son. He will be missed but is happy and healthy on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge .

LAYLA
Another special Basset hound went to the Rainbow Bridge today. When we saw Macey's picture and bio on the Basset Rescue web site we were in love. When her foster parents brought her over on a Saturday morning we knew she was the Basset for us. She was such a sweet shy little girl. After we adopted her, we changed her name to Layla (yes after the Eric Clapton song) and she quickly fit into our home becoming the center of attention. One of our neighbors gave her a toy that looked like a tree trunk with three toy squirrels inside. This quickly became her favorite "baby". She would get it out of her toy bucket and run through the house with it shaking the squirrels out of the tree trying to get somebody to chase her and throw her baby squirrels She loved her walks after her breakfast and dinner and would bark at us to hurry up and get her leash. Afterwards she would curl up in your lap and stay there as long as you would let her. She loved having those beautiful ears and her freckled tummy rubbed!!! We frequently took her for rides around our community on our golf cart, but as she got a little older this became her favorite thing to do. She even got to the point where she would sit on the golf cart seat in the garage just waiting for you to take her for her ride. Sadly, several months after we adopted her she began to experience some minor back issues. She would occasionally start limping and showing some weakness in her hind legs. You could tell that she had been a jumper in her previous life as we had to really work with her to break her of the habit. As she got older her back slowly became worse and we had many trips to the vet for steroid injections and prescriptions. One morning almost four years to the day after Layla came into our lives she lost the use of her back legs. It came suddenly as she had been on two walks and her cart ride the previous day. A trip to the vet revealed what we already knew. We could either subject her to a back surgery with only a 50% success rate or put her down. After many tears watching her struggle to drag herself around and watching her age rapidly over the past year from all of the steroids we decided to not let her suffer any more. The loss of our sweet little girl has left a huge hole in our hearts and lives. We know she's in a better place now with no pain, lots of other basset friends, with walks and rides every day. We love you sweetie and we'll see you on the other side of the bridge when our time comes. Mark and Michelle Jones

Millie
Millie came to us on July 26, 2004. My niece and I were waiting in the swing on the side of the driveway for what seemed like hours. When she finally ran up the driveway with her ears flopping my niece screamed “there she is.” Millie came with directions – Millie should NEVER be allowed in an unfenced area without a leash. She had been in 3 shelters and had a history of bolting. I did have to run after her more than once. I am so grateful that she luckily made it to the Rescue and that she landed in our care. It was a fabulous ride with our dear sweet Millie. She was a standout in obedience class, they recommended her for advanced (not common for a Basset they said). At Basset Hound Shuffle she ran through the entire agility course without skipping a beat. She won the musical mat contest 2 years in a row because she loved to sit on command-even without a treat. We think that her previous owners gave her some good training. We never won the weenie toss but we had so much fun practicing. I was so proud of her when we walked because she was so good on a leash. One day she broke her pace when she saw a rabbit and went crazy. A neighbor said not to be surprised because that is what she was bred for. I had to accept that fact for many rabbit sightings. Typical for her breed,(she was our 3rd Basset) she was a sweet girl and just loved to have her ears cleaned and rubbed. She loved to be brushed. Even after she lost her sight to glaucoma she was still happy in the back yard with her 2 Beagle brothers. As the years went by we walked less and less each day. At the end she was walking very slowly and we stayed on our street. She slept most of the time. She would only get up a few times a day to go outside. Because she was blind I would put her leash on and lead her outside. I would have taken special care of her forever but she stopped eating and responding. Broken hearted I took her to the vet and she found tumors on x-ray. The next day the blood work came back and it was determined that she was ready to go. The next day we took her in to end her suffering. I knew it was time and that we were doing the right thing but my heart did not get it. I miss her so much. I am so grateful to Basset Hound Rescue for enabling us to have this dear sweet, dog. Our best guess is that she was 12-14 years old. She was 4-6 when we got her. We feel she had a nice long run and we are so glad she came into our lives. RIP my dear sweet Millie. Bobby and Kathy Bryan