Jurgen "Clive" Terrell

The Terrell family has had basset hounds around us for a long time. Pam, the boys, and I love the breed. We love that they are laid back, and yet manipulative. We love that they are clownish, and yet oddly noble at the same time. We love that they are a big dog that is also a medium size dog. They are seriously awesome.

In December we chose to finally put down our male, Roux, when it had become obvious to us and our vet that he was seriously hurting from the cancer that was riddling his body. We were sad but our girl, Montana, was still with us. That changed two months ago.

When Montana died we thought we would go without a dog for a little while and then start the search at the end of the Summer. I say “search” because we like rescue dogs and finding the right rescue dog isn’t the same as just finding a puppy somewhere.¹ You have to search to find the right one.

Montana was a rescue through the Looziana Basset Rescue (a great organization) and Roux was a stray that we adopted after some friends/neighbors found him in their front yard (most likely just dropped off in our neighborhood by an owner who didn’t want or couldn’t afford to deal with the heart worms Roux had), and said we had to take him because he looked like he could be Montana’s brother. We loved both our rescues. So we started looking.

I say “we” but I really mean Pam. I may be the dog person, but she is the queen of research. Seriously, it is amazing how good she is at finding stuff. She scoured the basset hound rescue societies. We weren’t looking too hard, but a couple of times Pam found a dog that would spark our interest. Then thanks to a former youth (thanks Hannah) Pam got in touch with Leslie from Looziana Basset Rescue concerning whether there might be a dog with them that would be a good fit for us. She sent us a few low rez photos and a grainy video of a dog they had just received.

Below is the video.

video-1502740834 from Robert Terrell on Vimeo.

This was the day after the soon to be Jurgen “Clive” (they were calling him “Quinn”, which is amazing because he is obviously a “Clive”) had been fixed. Still he walks happy. I think it says a ton about the temperament of a dog when he walks happy the day after he has been “snipped”. We all agreed on this and we decided we needed to see him when we went down to Alabama.

The soon to be Clive had been living on the streets in New Orleans. He had heartworms which would have to be treated, but they were willing to wave the normal adoption fee if we agreed to pay for the treatment. We thought we would take a look at him. Pretty much the second we saw him in the flesh we instantly agreed that we wanted him to be a Terrell. He is just such a happy dog.

So, please meet Jürgen “Clive” Terrell. The first dog that I have been allowed by the family to name (I’ve tried to name our other dogs but i have always been “name jacked”² by the boys and Pam). He is, of course, named after Jürgen Moltmann and Clive Staples Lewis. He is primarily called Clive but J.C. works too.³ He is wonderful and you will see him tooling around Point with me. After three days with him I am pretty well convinced that he is the greatest dog alive in the world today. Please don’t hesitate to stop us and say “hi”. Clive will stop for anybody who wishes to pet him, particularly those who offer food for the privilege of doing so. Because of his namesakes he will also gladly stop to bark about theology.

1. Rescue dogs are the best. When you get a rescue you save a dog from neglect and possible death. Please always consider adopting first. [↩]
2. I had wonderful names for our three previous dogs and was convinced each time that it was best to go with a different name. Favorite “name jacking” story is our first family dog who I wanted to name “Nero” after a great quote at the beginning of FF Bruce’s book “Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free”. The quote was “One day men will name the sons Paul, and their dogs Nero”. So I was going to call our dog “Nero”. Then Adam (who was like 4 at the time asked if Nero was a bad man? I couldn’t lie to him and when I said yes Adam said “please don’t name my dog after a bad man, how about Hero instead”. ARGH KIDS! [↩]
3. MCB for Most Chill Basset has also been adopted as a usable name for Clive, though MCB has to be said in the manner that JTP is said on the TV show “the Goldbergs” [↩]