Fall 2017 Saber Tails 67
Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen Club of America
Meet Our members
With each quarterly edition of Saber Tail, we want to introduce members of our club. We have prepared a set of ques-
tions for each person to answer to help members get to know other PBGV lovers. Our membership is comprised of such
unique people from all over the world with a wide variety of experiences. But...we all have ONE thing in common - We
LOVE Our PBGVs! This month, in addition to an introdution to the Member of the Health Committee, meet Juliet Fran-
zen.
Since our first PBGV, Monique, came to live with
us in 2004, we cannot imagine life without
one. Monique was 6 years old and it was love
at first sight. When we went to see Monique,
a litter had been born the night before and
Carole Edison, the breeder, insisted that we re-
ally needed to take a puppy too. Of course the
puppies were adorable but we had never had a
puppy and said no. Once home with Monique,
we kept wrestling with the idea of getting a
puppy and finally decided to go back and pick
up 8 week old Marcel.
We had recently lost our mixed breed, Elvis.
Getting out a book of different breeds, we de-
termined that PBGVs were the closest breed
in appearance to our beloved hound of mixed
heritage. I doubt Elvis had any PBGV in him but
being a hound, he had a similar personality to
our PBGVs. We could never let Elvis off leash,
leave food unattended and, yes, he barked. A
computer search for “PBGV”s led us to Carole
and our lives were changed forever.
Robert grew up with dogs but Elvis was my first
dog. Because I didn’t have pets as a child, I didn’t understand why people loved animals until a feral cat adopted me
and after that Elvis came along. Now I adore animals and spend my days training, grooming, walking and feeding them.
I am a retired Financial Consultant and Robert is still working as one. We live on the Central Coast of California, eight
miles from the beach, half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Our house is on a half acre with a shop for Rob-
ert to indulge in his many hobbies of welding, woodworking and fixing up Model A and Model T Fords. He looks forward
to the day when he retires and can participate in his hobbies full time. My hobbies mostly revolve around dogs. I enjoy
dog agility and rally obedience with all our dogs. We have a practice agility course set up in our back yard. We now have
four dogs: three PBGVs and one Australian Shepherd. Marcel is 13, Kai, our Aussie is 11, Caprice and Josie are four. We
have been members of the PBGVCA for about 12 years and have gone to several National Specialties which we enjoyed
very much. We participated in several of the events but the best part was seeing so many PBGVs together in one place
and meeting others that love the breed as much as we do.
Juliet & Robert Franzen