LOWDOWN Summer 2015 page 5
From the Club Chair ✍ Brian Malin
It is my pleasure to congratulate everyone for our continuing success as a welcoming and friendly Club
providing fun for hound and owner alike.
We attract a steady flow of new members thanks to Webmaster Derek and his incredible site as well as the tangible pleasure of Tony's Lowdown - surely a magazine no other club can equal.
With Frankie, now in top form, and Jayne keeping an eye on our day to day finances we are in safe hands, not to mention Sue's sterling rescue work. I am just so fortunate to have the support of such a united Committee.
As I fear most of you will have realised my formative years
were spent in wartime and even as a lad of 6 I remember our radio (wireless I should have said) crackling out the chilling words that “this country is now at war with Germany”.
My companion was a young Springer Spaniel named Kim, whose role in life was to have a white sheet thrown over him and play the part of a German parachuter. Mostly the good guys won, but on occasion Kim responded with a quick nip - richly deserved and accepted without complaint - and for a change I was forced to surrender!
But I digress - I'm writing about our dog's diet. As I recall this consisted of hound meal (no complete meal then - come to that no pet shops only one corn merchant who stocked the hound meal along with Spratt’s Ovals and Spiller’s Shapes) to which was added butchers scraps and the few morsels the family could spare, mainly potato and vegetables.
I can't remember any tinned dog meat was obtainable but our sympathetic butcher happily handed out a large marrow bone with the weekly ration so Kim was over the moon once a week. He would insist on taking the remains of it into the Morrison Shelter where we often slept encircled by the aroma.
His unofficial treat was when I was in a strop refusing to eat the weekly roast lunch (much cabbage - ugh!). However, I was left at the table thus enabling me to slip the plate to Kim. My parents must have known as no-one cleans a plate like an enthusiastic dog, but I was allowed to get away with it because they wanted to go on the Downs with Kim.
One thing is certain - Kim was happily involved with everything, never overweight, and lived to as good an age as his successors.
Compare the above to a dog's life now a proliferation of pet shops and stores, additives for healthy coats, digestion and anything else you can think of. We confess we do give Glucosamine/Chondritin tablets as they must help their joints as well as ours, but we still use old fashioned hound meal with chunks of frozen heart, liver and tripe and varied modern complete meal. They don't have bones but always have something hard like tripe sticks baked fish skin chews Bonios and tooth chews.
The point is all 15 of our dogs have lived to a decent age for the particular breed (but never long enough) and I just wonder if in providing what we feel are interesting and healthy diets we are not really improving their quality of life but just showing our great appreciation of their company - whilst the hounds couldn't care less as long as meals come on time!
chairman@bassethoundowners.org.uk
(Ed; Brian supplied this lovely photo of Norris - shown here looking calm and reposed. How very different to the live-wire young hound that we were familiar with.
It all goes to show what a little training and love can do - and spending a few months living with our Chairman!)
It is my pleasure to congratulate everyone for our continuing success as a welcoming and friendly Club
providing fun for hound and owner alike.
We attract a steady flow of new members thanks to Webmaster Derek and his incredible site as well as the tangible pleasure of Tony's Lowdown - surely a magazine no other club can equal.
With Frankie, now in top form, and Jayne keeping an eye on our day to day finances we are in safe hands, not to mention Sue's sterling rescue work. I am just so fortunate to have the support of such a united Committee.
As I fear most of you will have realised my formative years
were spent in wartime and even as a lad of 6 I remember our radio (wireless I should have said) crackling out the chilling words that “this country is now at war with Germany”.
My companion was a young Springer Spaniel named Kim, whose role in life was to have a white sheet thrown over him and play the part of a German parachuter. Mostly the good guys won, but on occasion Kim responded with a quick nip - richly deserved and accepted without complaint - and for a change I was forced to surrender!
But I digress - I'm writing about our dog's diet. As I recall this consisted of hound meal (no complete meal then - come to that no pet shops only one corn merchant who stocked the hound meal along with Spratt’s Ovals and Spiller’s Shapes) to which was added butchers scraps and the few morsels the family could spare, mainly potato and vegetables.
I can't remember any tinned dog meat was obtainable but our sympathetic butcher happily handed out a large marrow bone with the weekly ration so Kim was over the moon once a week. He would insist on taking the remains of it into the Morrison Shelter where we often slept encircled by the aroma.
His unofficial treat was when I was in a strop refusing to eat the weekly roast lunch (much cabbage - ugh!). However, I was left at the table thus enabling me to slip the plate to Kim. My parents must have known as no-one cleans a plate like an enthusiastic dog, but I was allowed to get away with it because they wanted to go on the Downs with Kim.
One thing is certain - Kim was happily involved with everything, never overweight, and lived to as good an age as his successors.
Compare the above to a dog's life now a proliferation of pet shops and stores, additives for healthy coats, digestion and anything else you can think of. We confess we do give Glucosamine/Chondritin tablets as they must help their joints as well as ours, but we still use old fashioned hound meal with chunks of frozen heart, liver and tripe and varied modern complete meal. They don't have bones but always have something hard like tripe sticks baked fish skin chews Bonios and tooth chews.
The point is all 15 of our dogs have lived to a decent age for the particular breed (but never long enough) and I just wonder if in providing what we feel are interesting and healthy diets we are not really improving their quality of life but just showing our great appreciation of their company - whilst the hounds couldn't care less as long as meals come on time!
chairman@bassethoundowners.org.uk
(Ed; Brian supplied this lovely photo of Norris - shown here looking calm and reposed. How very different to the live-wire young hound that we were familiar with.
It all goes to show what a little training and love can do - and spending a few months living with our Chairman!)