The Dogs

My wife is a big mystery fan and I will occasionally get hooked on the occasional author. One of her favorites was Virgnia Lanier whose last book was A Bloodhound to Die For. Unfortunately this has to be the last in the series as the author passed away shortly afterwards.

This series of books got her interested in bloodhounds. She has always been a dog person although we had recently lost our cat who at least thought he was a dog (different story). Therefore we decided to do some research.

First stop was The New Complete Bloodhound by Catherine Brey and Lena Reed. Aside from the wonderful pictures, the descriptions of the breed convinced us that we would like one. We were also well convinced that one had to be careful in the purchase of any dog in picking the right source. The term "puppy mill" was bandied about to apply to a class of breeders who bred and sold dogs indiscrimately and do not even let one get started on pet stores.

We went from the AKC website to the national association and finally got a recommendation from the head of that association to a local breeder, Rebellion Bloodhounds, http://dayvolt.tripod.com/. The Dayvolt family upheld everything positive about "hobby" breeders (i.e., people whose love for the dogs far exceeds any sense of business expedience) and after an interview process in which I believe it would be easier to adopt a baby, we were deemed worthy to get a puppy.

At the time our bloodhound's mother was pregnant and once the litter arrived once the puppies were old enough to be handled (although not adopted), we were encourages to visit (a 40 minute drive each way) on weekends to help socialize all the puppies. Our puppy, a boy, we had decided to name Toby after the dog Sherlock Holmes employs in "The Sign of Four" (and yes, we know that the dog described in the story is a mixed breed and not, as is Toby, a purebred bloodhound. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..." Emerson).

We ended up taking him home on the late end of the acceptable range because I had to go on a business trip around that time and did not want Toby to meet his new Dad only to have him disappear for a week. A somewhat dated picture of Toby along with two of the kids is at: http://www.members.tripod.com/~dayvolt/tobypic.html.

Today Toby is an inextricable part of the family. Bloodhounds are extremely calm and make up in an enormous heart what they may lack in analytic capabilities. Once, as a puppy we game Toby a dog biscuit and his enormous paw happened to land on it. This caused some consternation as Toby could smell the biscuit but not see it. He moved his paw to the left, no biscuit, he moved his paw to the right, no biscuit. Finally we had to take pity on him and lift his paw ourself.

Our other dog, Cody, is a black lab-Airedale mix. The reaosn for the similarity in names is that he was originally my oldest son't dog names by his girlfriend. It was not until he needed to move to the west coast that he decided to leave Cody with us. They had visited many times and the dogs had seemed to genuinely enjoy each other's company.

My oldest is in the Coast Guard, and Cody's parents are two of the roughest, meanest, drug enforcement dogs they have. Collectively they gave birth to a marshmallow. Cody talks a good game when someone comes to the door, but if they could see through the door they would realize that he barks a warning while backing himself up the stairs ("save yourselves, I know I am"). On another occasion as a puppy Toby got into a growling match with the bloodhound in the dishwasher. Amazingly enough however threatening he became that dog in the dishwasher assumed an equally threatening pose.

Cody's been battling an ear infection that has lasted over a year, but we seem to be finally getting it completely under control having found a vet who is the southeast's leading veterinary dermatologist. However, between this infection and a broken leg before he was ours, Cody gives new meaning to the term "total cost of ownership". Unfortunately we cannot convince our health insurance that he's a dependent.