One Trick Dog

D Vautier
11/2000

Basset hounds come pre-packaged with one trick.  All you have to do is look  your basset in the eye and issue the command “[dog’s name] – sleep”, and it will immediately and obediently find a convenient spot on the couch in front of the TV, or in one of the bedrooms and fall fast asleep.  I guarantee that this is a built-in function that all bassets the world over seem to have from birth.

Every time I open a can of pitted olives, they start disappearing because the kids toss them to the dogs and our dogs love olives (and just about everything else too).  You can toss an olive anywhere within 10 feet of the big dogs, and they will catch it.  You can throw it fast or slow.  You can pitch an outside sinker, or an inside slider, or a change-up, and the big dogs will catch the olive every time without fail.

But then there’s the basset that just can stand by helplessly and witness all the activity, and out of pity you have to hold food right under that big nose.  She possesses only a profound sense of how to sleep—a one trick dog.