Have Bassetwagon, will travel (with Bassets) aka Trip to West Texas: Day One

We talked about our vacation time forever and finally decided against boarding our beloved Bassets, Blue, Clemmie & Gus, because we'd just miss them too much.  So we set out last Thursday to West Texas from our home in Austin for a 4-day family vacation.

I'm not going to be pretentious - our dogs are high maintenance and somewhat annoying because they are spoiled.  At home they come and go as they please thanks to a doggie door that has existed their entire lives.  So it is a big adjustment (FOR US) when we have to actually let them out, especially since we didn't know how much this needed to be done.  (Turns out that it is a minimum of three times a night - usually at 11pm, 3am and 5am.)

Let me back up a bit... My name is Tobi and my husband, Kris and I have three dogs that we are crazy about - they are all Basset Hounds: Bluebonnet is 8 years old, Clementine will turn 6 in June and Augustus will be 1 year old in July.  Our dogs do all those wonderful things like give us unconditional love, hang out with us when we're sick and make us smile.  This is the new normal - nearly everyone we know has dogs that are part of the family.  Austin is the best city in the world and it loves people who love their dogs so that means we can bring our dogs with us to almost all of our favorite places to eat & drink.  It's a truly wonderful thing!

I'm not new to blogging - after all this one's had two or three reincarnations over the past six or so years.  But I always wanted the blog to a.) be about something special, b.) be about my family and c.) be about something I wanted to share.  We have finally decided to start blogging about all of the adventures we have with our hounds.  They have been on several day trips with us around Texas and a few extended weekend visits to my parents' home in Louisiana.  I can't help but feel that it's a unique adventure when a dog is along for the ride.  However, I realize that it is very likely that I will read this blog more than anyone else but I'm still going to do it.

So back to our trip this past weekend.  We rented a house in Marfa because it had a fenced in yard.  It is in a good location for day trips to Big Bend, Alpine, Fort Davis and Marathon as well.  When we arrived, we immediately let the doggies out to get familiar with the territory.  They seemed happy enough despite a lack of shade and an overabundance of burrs.

Next post: Our day at Big Bend National Park

Bassetwagon at max capacity

Car rides always make babies sleepy

Happy Halloween!

Fresh, Clean and Ready for Halloween!

Fresh from the groomers!

Look how bright the white fur is! And they smell so good. I love clean babies!! Unfortunately, they will be dirty by the time I get home because the smell that is pleasant to me stinks to them.

Harnessed up and ready to go

More pictures of our Girls' Day Out to follow...

Video: Fun @ The Dog Park

Yesterday the girls got a treat - instead of a walk, they got to get their exercise out at the new dog park in town.

All loaded up in the wagon!

At first they only played with each other...

But it didn't take them long to make friends.

We especially liked this fella - a smallish bloodhound. We didn't get a name or a number, but we know where he hangs out!

Here's a video of the girls running around the park.

Clean bills of health

Yesterday the girls went to see Dr. Bob and the best vet tech in the world, Chris, at Best Vet here in Austin. It was time for their annual check-ups and shots.

Loaded in the Basset wagon and patiently waiting to get down at the vet's office

Being good girls in the waiting room

After our shots and blood draws... waiting for Dr. Bob to come in and tickle us

Back at home relaxing after we both received clean bills of health - no worms, no diseases, no infections

Bluebonnet: 43 pounds, very healthy, perfect weight, good heart, sweet disposition

Clementine: 35 pounds, super healthy, slim and trim, good heart, weird foot

Big Announcement... kind of

I have merged my two blogs into one. I've been hesitant to do this for a while because I don't want to lose any dog blog readers, but it just makes the most sense for me and my time management challenges. I think the blog will shake out to 90% dog stuff and 10% everything else.

In other news, the D Family got a new vehicle to make our lives a little bit easier and a lot more comfortable. I was calling it the Bassetmobile but out of the blue today I referred to it as the Bassetwagon so I think that henceforth it will be called only that or The Wagon for short since it is after all an awesomely cool stationwagon. It's great to have a little tailgate to flip up and have the girls jump on in the back without any assistance... Well it was great that one time they did it. I still have faith that at some point in the near future they will jump in on their own and Kris and I will give each other a big high-five.

I'm taking the wagon on a trip to Louisiana this weekend to see my family, however sans Basset Hound. The girls are going to stay behind and hang out with dad.

This past Saturday, the girls and I frolicked in the hallway on the new runner rug we got and I snapped a few pics of their sublime cuteness!

Today I returned home very anxious to see my babies. As I walked through the foyer I looked down the hallway and saw this:

Oh yes! The little one has already destroyed the rug. I should be freaking out but Kris and I kind of though this might happen and we wanted to use this as a training opportunity so we bought a very inexpensive extra-long rug that I can actually cut shorter and re-trim. You can see that on one end I had already put a little cayenne down to deter her from going back. I didn't, however, put any on the other end.

Live and learn, Tobi... live and learn.

On Sunday, Kris and I took a drive out to Lockhart, Texas to get some barbecue for my sister-in-law's family. We had been itching to joyride in the new car so it was a nice little 3 hour jaunt there and back. I'm trying to be as cool as other Volvo wagon owners who take their cars on grand adventures so I snapped a pic of the car in front of the famous Black's BBQ of Lockhart.

It's the first of many photo opps for this car! I'm already thinking of different angles to get of the wagon on the levee in my parents' town or the pontoon bridge you have to take to get to their house. I just have to promise Kris not to do anything too crazy!

That about does it for now...

Take care everyone!

Tobi

New Bassetmobile

This weekend Kris went and traded in my tiny little coupe for a sporty stationwagon... and boy is everyone in the D family happy about this. Kris and I like for the girls to be comfortable in the car whether we are driving 6 hours to visit my parents in Louisiana or just taking them to the vet which is 7 minutes from the house. No one likes a wimpering, whiny or scared dog in the car, it's just not fun. We went for a stationwagon so we could put down some comfy blankets and the girls could stretch out and have plenty of room. But the bonus of the stationwagon is that there are so many windows for the girls to look out and see the world go by. I was so tickled by how well their first trip in the car went. I snapped a few pics of the girls in the back. Don't they seem to be enjoying the ride?