Welcome to the latest issue of BHOC’s Lowdown.

After a very strange start to the new year, with numerous and significant celebrity deaths, 2016 seems to be advancing quickly towards a, hopefully, jollier summer season.

The Club has already had several enjoyable walks, including Friston Forest which was followed by a very nice picnic. We were fortunate not to be troubled by the forecast showers - instead this varied walk through open Downland and sheltered forest was, for the most part, sunny and quite warm and thankfully dry.

Planning picnics for May is always optimistic!

The really great thing about the approaching summer is that we can look forward to enjoying spending long days outdoors with our hounds. Whether it’s a walk in the countryside, or a day at the coast, I’m sure we all love having them with us whenever we can.

And it seems perfectly natural to want to also include our pets in our longer trips and holiday adventures. I’ve noticed when with our caravan how a majority of other caravaners and campers also have their dogs in tow. I know that whenever Frankie and I have been abroad, and without ‘the boys’, we miss them so badly, and are constantly thinking about how they are coping without us. Of course, the answer is that they are coping perfectly well. And miss us not at all!

Anyway, we feel better nowadays sharing our breaks with them, especially as they reach their precious autumn years. Thankfully, they are still fit and greatly enjoy their walks. It is very satisfying after an exhausting day spent in the fresh air to sit around the barbecue, perhaps with a drink, as the sausages or chops are gently sizzling, to listen to the contented, snoring hounds at our feet. With the sacrificial smoke drifting up into a vast, starry sky, one feels that life doesn’t get much better.

A romantic, fanciful, conceit I know, but for us perfectly true. Somehow this experience does tap into an atavistic memory of being primitive hunter/ gatherers around a campfire.

Certainly mankind’s love of sharing our lives with canine friends goes back a very long time. And, in this increasingly sophisticated, digital, high-speed, world, their inclusion in our families seems so important.

So what of you? I am interested to discover how you and your hounds are spending the summer. It would be good to include any of your stories and photographs in the winter issue of Lowdown. So I encourage you to send me these stories for inclusion. Alternatively, you may have holidayed abroad without your pets, but spotted ‘foreign' Hounds - in which case, let me have the details.

All our wonderful hounds seem to enjoy the chance on our Club walks to pack together and have fun. And though I fully understand that there are many competing demands upon your time at this period of the year, but I do encourage as many of you as possible to come along to these ‘meets’.

We can hope for some fine - or at least dry - weather for these events, but British summers being what they are, who knows? Like our breed we tend to be a hardy lot, and persevere regardless of any adversity.

Many regular attendees will remember, almost fondly, some past Midsummer Picnics being held in almost blizzard conditions. We have clustered together in a small copse of trees, dressed in waterproofs, eating some increasingly soggy picnic morsels, wet hounds at our feet, whilst rain and wind have whirled around us, tempest-like. And Brian, our Prospero, cursing the elements to stop; only to be responded with claps of distant thunder. Midsummer, indeed! But, what fun memories.

Should I be dissuading you from attending in the future, we have also held this picnic in lovely, evening sun; remaining there and chatting until darkness gently arrived; and only then packing up chairs and tables to return home.

In April we held our AGM. This year at a new venue thought more convenient to members, and following a Club walk. It was hoped by the committee that this would encourage more to attend. However, only former AGM die-hards attended and few ‘new’ members came. The AGM is a very good chance for members to have their say in Club affairs. Still, we will try this again next year and see if more people are enthused enough to come along. We welcome any new ideas and help to improve our Club.

Once again, I want to encourage you to visit our Club’s excellent website: www.bassethoundowners.org.uk Derek spends a great deal of time and energy making this one of the most useful sites of any breed club. Importantly, it shows up to date information about our events, in addition to giving detailed directions to venues. As Brian reminded us at this year’s AGM we are very lucky to have him as our webmaster.

I am sure, like us, you are often greeted when out and about with the hounds by the phrase,

“You don’t see many of these nowadays”.

I usually find myself meekly nodding agreement, in order not to enter an extended conversation about how popular our Club is and how many Basset Hounds we see each month. On occasions, we also come across BH owners we have not seen before. With this in mind, the Club has produced some business cards to hand to possible new members. Should you like to carry some of these around then please ask Frankie, or me, for some at one of our events.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this issue, and wish you and your hounds a very enjoyable summer.

See you around!

editor@bassethoundowners.org.uk