Fall 2017 Saber Tails 69
Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen Club of America
came to meet the babies and our friend’s son, Patrick, had a wonderful time walking the dogs and spoiling the babies.
His school was cancelled for two weeks, so I think he enjoyed the distraction.
A
s the week progressed, the weather cleared up and we had some truly beautiful days…but the river continued to
rise. It ultimately crested on September 1st one foot higher than it had the previous year. Our yard was covered
by 6-18 inches of water and the water made it to the weep holes on our brick house. Amazingly, no water made its
way into the house. One other house on our street stayed dry. The owners, who had flooded the year before, rented a
back hoe, dug a moat and used the dirt to make a dam around the house. The husband sat out in a lawn chair on the
driveway with a beer and a shovel. When water started to breach his dam, he shoveled on more dirt. It was extreme…
but it worked. He was also nice enough to climb out and refill our generator to keep the
fish alive after the roads closed and we could no longer return by truck to check on the
house. All the fish survived.
A
s a bonus, we also had thousands of baby fish swimming in the yard washed up
from the river and down from people’s stocked ponds. We tried to encourage them
to swim back toward the Brazos but most ended stranded in dwindling pools of water in
the yard. Between the dying fish and the squirrels that died when their apartment com-
plex crashed into our house, our scent hounds were busy. For about a week after our
return, they were constantly bringing in dead, rotting, stinky things. Monroe was kind
enough to share a rotting squirrel leg with our then 6 week old baby Jekyll. I saw him
chewing on something, reached into his mouth and pulled out a disgusting treasure.
Yuck!!! When they weren’t eating the dead creatures, they were rolling all over them. All
dogs had multiple baths the first week we returned and still seemed to smell of death
most of the time. Aslak had four baths in four days. Neither of us were amused! Luckily,
the dead critters eventually were all consumed or
carted off by owls and vultures and the dogs’ bath-
ing schedule went back to normal.
I
f there is a moral to the story that I’ve learned, it’s how important it is to have a
plan and then think about the worst thing that could possibly happen to send
your plan “to hell in a handbasket” as the old saying goes. I was ‘semi’ prepared
but was so convinced that things like this only really happen to other people, that I
didn’t necessarily think through how the plan would work and if it made sense giv-
en the potential outcomes. Essentially, it’s important to try to imagine the things
that are extremely unlikely and be prepared in case those come to fruition. The fact
is that there is no way to be completely prepared, but I think that going through
the motions of deciding how to handle various scenarios can help prepare you for
the kinds of things you’ll need to deal with in an actual emergency.
T
hank you to everyone who
offered to help us. We had
offers from people all over the
country, Lindley Henson in Cal-
ifornia, Donna Moore in North
Texas, Rodney & Bryan in Indi-
ana, Cindy Wilt in Alabama all offering to keep dogs for us or help
in any way they could. Facebook friends who I’ve never met in per-
son offered to keep our dogs. Other friends and club members who
live in Houston and didn’t know if they would be safe in a matter of
days offered to take us in – it’s amazing how much these hairy little
hounds have enriched our lives with laughter from their antics and
We had thousands of little black catfish
and little white fish babies in our yard
Aslak’s fourth bath in a week - he was in heaven
rolling on all the dead critters he found in the
yard when we made our way back home.
When the water finally dissipated and we moved home, the yard was
covered in mud, dead leaves and debris - the dogs LOVED it!
Cont’d on p 70
Cont’d from p 65