So there we were . . .

Collecting enough money to buy new breeding stock turned into a bit of a hurdle. But somehow I found some money to invest. Finding a puppy was easy, finding a good breeder was not. Craig's List, along with a number of puppy selling web sites, eventually brought me to a breeder named Jenny who live up in Pullman, Washington. Our planning for the trip to Pullman took a while. But like everything else we do the planning is the most fun part. We found a nice hotel on Kayak.com and off we went.

Jenny, at the time a veterinary student, lives on a big piece of property east of town with four or five Bassets and a three legged dog of indeterminate breed as well as a few cats and probably a bunch of other animals. All of which turned out to welcome us as we came up the gravel driveway.

Diego, pictured at the right, was the sire and there were a three females. Penny, below, was expecting and so we struck a deal, sight unseen, for a female to be determined at a later date.



The main reason I bought there was Diego's very wide skull shape and the ear length of both parents. I always thought that one should buy a basset for the ears, the longer the better, and both parents had good length. But the bottom line was that I needed good stock to get the project started and so we put down a deposit and waited for the results.

When the puppies were born we had to pick ours from a picture because we had first pick. Other buyers were very eager and this pushed our decision.


My preference was for tri-colored like Diego (like the puppy on the right). My hopes were to breed only tri-colored pups because I believed that is the best sort. But as we studied the pictures we thought that one little girl had the right stuff and so we picked out Karmel Korn (pictured as a puppy below). Karmen (her puppy name) became our first new addition in seven years. Henry and Lizzy, our pet Bassets, we not as pleased as one might think, but eventually she settled in nicely. She had the head shape, the ear length, and everything else the AKC says are good attributes for a Basset Hound.

But she always was a bit whiny.

I immediately began the search for a second female. The plan was to acquire two females, wait a year, and look for a male in the next winter.

At the time I was engaged in attending Pacific University in a pre-law school philosophy track. This is a side story I will arrive at much later. Needless to say, some plans fall through, but our quest for another female came to a good end.



We found the Cinnamon Bear (Cinnamon pictured on the right) on Craig's List. Her breeder was living near Lapine, Oregon; but the dates conflicted with my school schedule and so I arraigned the sale without visiting the breeder first. This was a mistake.

Cinnamon came to us a bit smaller than she should have been, but she was pretty. I figure that she came from a bad breeder. Someone who was interested in the money more than the good of the dog. But she fit in eventually with Karmen, while never really fitting in with Henry or Lizzy.

But I had my two females, so the story continues.