Basset Hound

There's a moment every Basset Hound owner knows. You're standing at the back door, holding it open, waiting. Your Basset is three feet away, looking at you with those impossibly droopy eyes — eyes that contain more sorrow than a country music catalog — and they are considering whether the effort of walking through that door is worth it. Not because they don't want to go outside. They do. They just need you to understand that this is a big decision and it cannot be rushed. Everything about a Basset Hound says 'I'll get there when I get there, and I'll look heartbreakingly adorable the whole time.' Those ears that drag through their water bowl. Those stumpy legs carrying a body that seems engineered by someone who forgot to check the proportions. That nose — oh, that nose — second only to the Bloodhound and capable of following a scent trail that's days old, which is why your 'quick walk around the block' turned into a forty-five-minute investigation of a single fire hydrant. But here's what nobody tells you before you get a Basset: they are secretly, devastatingly funny. They'll howl at absolutely nothing. They'll wedge their massive body into the smallest dog bed in the house and look at you like you're the one being unreasonable. They'll somehow get onto the kitchen counter — don't ask how, nobody has ever witnessed it — and eat an entire loaf of bread without a shred of guilt. A Basset Hound doesn't hurry, doesn't stress, and doesn't apologize. They are the embodiment of living life at your own pace, and honestly, we could all learn something from that.