Dog eat dog world

One of the questions I get asked most frequently is, "What are you going to do with your dogs?" There were two tough pills to swallow with this opportunity, one being the house and the second being the dogs. There was actually a point in time where I envisioned bringing one of them to Taiwan with us but I fortunately came to the conclusion that this would be self-serving and the right thing to do would be to find them both suitable homes. Living in an apartment in Taipei is not suitable for these guys.

Kramer is 14 and I've had him since a pup. I actually solicited my sister to enter as a silent partner into his purchase from a mall pet store. They had two Bassets at the time, Kramer and his brother. I got to play with them and Kramer mauled his brother so I chose Kramer. Also, his brother had only one testicle.

I recently read that Bassets rarely live past 12 years of age. Kramer is still going pretty strong at 14.5. Luckily, my Mother has agreed to take Kramer and we'll be hauling him up to Canada this weekend. I'm sure we'll have more to say about that later in the week.

We got Ozzie from a coworker of mine who had an uncle who had a kid that worked at a pet store who brought home this dog and their condo association allegedly told them they couldn't keep the dog. Ozzie is a handful. I think they were just looking for an exit strategy. We took him in when he was eight months old and he is now 10 years.

We've been working through a Basset Hound rescue organization to find him a home. Anyone who runs a Basset Hound rescue has to be insane, for multiple reasons. I called the rescue lady tonight and she didn't disappoint. There's just something not right, in that crazy cat lady sort of way. But I'm really hoping that she can find Ozzie a good home before I leave in May. Go crazy Basset Hound Lady!

We'll be sad to part ways with our dogs. I think the void left by bringing Kramer to Canada this weekend will propel the imminence of this move into a new league. I wonder if he'll like life as an ex-pat.

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