True Rock Hounds

It's come to this.  We joined the Basset Hound Club of Southern California.  Ordinarily we are not joiners.  However, joining this outfit seemed at the time to be a must do sort of thing.  Every October the group hosts the Basset Hound Picnic in a local park.  Come on!  The Basset Hound Picnic!  And so we joined.
The other day we got out first newsletter - Basset Tales - which is the Official Publication of the Basset Hound Club of Southern California.
The president's column got our attention right away.
One of her female Basset Hounds '...ingested yet another rock.'  And, the column went on to tell us, underwent her second rock removal surgery.  She has, we learned, eaten and passed many a rock in her years but only two have required surgery.  The dog is only four years old so apparently there remain a lot of rocks in her future.  The column then sadly described rock hounds less fortunate.  Rock hounds who, as a matter of fact, died from, well, ummmh, eating rocks.
Absurd, thought we.
No self respecting Basset Hound and certainly no responsible Basset Hound human would engage in or allow such behavior.
Funny how quickly life wipes smiles off of our faces.
Just hours later our Basset Hound became listless, wouldn't eat his breakfast, and ultimately (at the risk of being gross) relieved himself of a rock.
Bradford has given new meaning to, "I'll have it on the rocks."
He has also lost the ability to be in our backyard unsupervised.
I knew we had a Basset Hound.  I didn't know that we also had a Rock Hound.