Summer 2017  Saber Tails 67    

Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen Club of America

And he looked genuinely pleased that he had found a mud bath and was happy to show me where to find it in case I 

wanted to join him!  He seemed equally genuinely confused when I hauled him back to the bath tub for another round 

of scrubbing before bed!

As a PBGV owner of 11 years, I have learned to always have a camera handy!  You never know what you might catch your 

pup doing! 

Tasty Christmas Treats

Featuring “Cricket”

3 month old at the time of this “tail”

As told by Tiffany Cannon

Cricket came to live with us just before Christmas in 2007.  Born the end of 

September, she was only three months old when we put out the Christmas 

tree, stockings and presents.  Truffle was our first PBGV and we had gotten her 

at 8 weeks old, survived and in general thought we had this puppy thing down.  

Ha Ha!  Those two girls couldn’t be more different!  Truffle was a challenge to 

potty train.  Cricket never has had an accident in the house – never.  Truffle is 

incredibly independent, Cricket is very dependent.  Truffle was an explorer and 

was not food motivated.  In fact, she sniffs everything before taking it from 

you, seemingly to determine if you are trying to poison her or are you really 

giving her an unsolicited treat.  Cricket, on the other hand, explores the world 

by tasting it!  Everything goes into her mouth where she tastes it to decide if 

she should chew and swallow or dump it back on the floor.  Truffle has always loved to sleep under the Christmas tree 

on the tree skirt, but she was always good with it.  Cricket was another story altogether.  Our first Christmas with Cricket 

changed the way we approach Christmas to this day!  

I came out of my office at one point and found Cricket playing with something blue and crunchy…sitting on the ground, 

happily crunching away.  I wondered what she had and bent over to investigate.  Oh no!  A glass Christmas ornament 

she took off the tree!  Immediately grabbing up the pieces, I couldn’t determine whether or not there was enough glass 

to equal an entire ornament or not.  Thank God nothing bad came from that.  The next year the Christmas tree was con-

siderably smaller and placed up on an end table with skirt hanging down around the table.  (Now the tree is in a room 

where the dogs have no unsupervised access.)

One of our presents from “Santa” was a memory foam topper for our king sized bed.  If you’ve ever bought one, you 

know that they come rolled and need time to sort of inflate.  We unrolled it in the living room and left it there to “fluff” 

up while we fixed dinner.  Truffle and Cricket stayed in the kitchen with us trying to catch something that might fall to 

the floor from the kitchen counter.  Bill and I were happily talking about Christmas while cooking.  We suddenly realized 

that Cricket was no longer with us in the kitchen.  Uh oh…where is she now?  Right in the middle of the new memory 

foam mattress topper pulling out mouthfuls of foam.  She was very happily enjoying “her Christmas present!”  We didn’t 

get a picture of the mattress pad, but she committed a similar offense on my memory foam pillow that Christmas as well.  

Luckily for us, Cricket outgrew this destructive phase quickly and without actually 

swallowing anything that could kill her.  We cer-

tainly learned a lot and have approached our fu-

ture litters and puppies with a suspicious nature.  I 

always tell stories like these to people buying pup-

pies from us.  Try really hard to think like a mischie-

vous puppy.  These guys are smart and devious!  

Even when they are being really cute!

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