about 10 minutes ago the terrell family just finished the first ever “terrell howl off”. it all started because pam, my wife, desperately wants montana, our 1 year old basset hound, to “howl“. hounds are great howlers when they are mature. montana is only one year old and has another full year before she will be considered a mature basset. i figure that’s why she doesn’t howl. her voice hasn’t changed yet (yes basset’s voices change as they mature) and nobody wants their voice to crack while they’re howling.
still, pam really wants montana to howl. in her attempts to figure out how to accomplish this goal pam has done what she usually does when ever she faces a problem – researches the problem. pam is excellent and getting on the web and finding the right material to answer whatever question she has. so she read up on the world of bassets. she dug into the vast amount of basset hound literature in search of the answer to the age old question “how do i get my basset to howl?”
what she found out was that bassets like to sing in chorus. these smart dogs like to be with others when they let loose of their melodic howls. apparently releasing their voices alone is just not as much fun and bassets are all about fun. so this left us with only a few options:
- we could get used to having a basset who doesn’t like to howl.
- we could start a howling support group where bassets of all ages, sizes, and ear length could get together and howl freely.
- we could buy a few more bassets just for the purpose of getting montana to howl.
- or we, the terrell family, could pretend to be bassets and howl in order to get montana to howl.
pam, of course, chose the last option.
i truly think the whole thing kind of scared montana. she looked real concerned and confused when pam started the holwing. montana went from “confused” to “excited” when pam cajoled the rest of us into doing it. i would love to say that it didn’t work but i can’t. my wife is strange but she does know how to accomplish what she wants. so we now have a basset who howls.