Wimsey's Blog: Diary of a Manhattan Bloodhound #163

Entry #163
April 2, 2010

Hello everyone, Wimsey here coming to you from the beautiful and finally blooming Upper West Side of Manhattan where Easter festivities are in full swing.

For me this mostly means that a lot of Paschal tourists are in town to admire me and that my human Maria is seriously considering adding rabbit à la façon Wimsey to the Houndly table d’hôte (rabbit, or more properly, lapin, à la façon Wimsey is rabbit boiled, fried, grilled, poached, baked, fricasseed, barbecued, steamed, braised or on the hoof, so to speak, as when it comes to the consumption of fast moving rodents I am not fussy). Of course Glenn Close and I share a March 19th birthday so perhaps the bunny should be boiled. But sadly, Maria’s friend Elizabeth (my frequent nemesis in matters culinary) has discouraged this as she feels the actual eating of a fast moving rodent would only encourage me in my desire to hunt them and by extension result in the further dislocation of her shoulder.

Anyway, it is a good thing that the Easter Bunny is fictitious because should he ever make an appearance Chez Hound I would eat him (and the contents of his basket too!). But it is also a good thing that this post is dated April 2nd and not April 1st—otherwise I would be writing a wholly fictional and shocking account of my week in which I was actually well mannered and well behaved:

One in which I did not drag my humans around the parks and streets of New York

or run down the stairs baying furiously

or take spectacularly inconvenient naps sprawled across the middle of the kitchen floor

or get up and display my tush as soon as Elizabeth pointed her camera at me

or decide that the route out of the park required that I sniff every square millimeter at exhaustive length

or refuse to poop until I find exactly the right spot—a process that generally consumes many hours

or turn into He Who Must Be Scratched as soon as Elizabeth sits on the couch with the newspapers

or try to stick my head into the toilet after every use

or take Maria’s spot on the bed

or stick my large, cold and wet nose into the sensitive bits of uncooperative lady dogs

or fling drool on unsuspecting passersby

or bay at red traffic lights terrifying surrounding pedestrians

or stand in front of the 20th precinct and refuse to move

or run my large cold and wet nose up and down Elizabeth’s legs when she changes into her Hound jeans to walk me

or time my gaseous emissions to coincide with mealtimes

or squeak my toy when Elizabeth is on an important business call but not when she is talking to her friends

or stage a sit down strike in front of Grom Gelato

or try to investigate the sandwiches people are eating on park benches

or try to poop on the spring flowers

or stand statue like in front of television and computer screens

or try to steal people’s water bottles

or, having stolen the water bottles, lie down in the mud to chew off their caps

or dispense crunchy dirt and other miscellaneous organic matter throughout my humans’ apartments

or leave big dirty paw prints on the white bath mat

or demand to be scratched when my humans are answering the call of nature

or move my toys and rawhides about so they are always available to be tripped upon

or come over to smear my dripping drooly face on my humans clothing after each drink of water

or etc. etc. etc.


Well this week has been quite pleasant apart from the two days of torrential downpour that forced the wearing of my new raincoat and made my walks rather unpleasant. On the positive side however, the rains created vast and intriguing puddles of mud into which I could wade and get spectacularly wet and filthy. Getting spectacularly wet and filthy is always a desirable achievement as not only does it annoy my humans but it also leads to lengthy massages with fluffy towels in a (usually futile) attempt to return me to pristine condition.

And on Sunday I ran into an old friend—Roman the Bracco Italiano, a breed that is related to the bloodhound! It’s hard to tell amidst all the action, but our faces are eerily similar (not to mention the fact that Roman has quite a fine pointy head, no doubt delineating his superior intelligence). Last time we met my perfidious humans forgot the camera and so they were no able to capture the majesty of this Italian cousin. Roman is an unbelievably impressive and handsome fellow but sadly he does not bay—apparently this was bred out of the Bracco. I can’t imagine why.

And also this week, I almost got an acting job as a bomb sniffing dog. An agent called about casting me for this role but unfortunately the shoot was on a day that Elizabeth had a business meeting. I was all in favor of her canceling the meeting but in the end she decided that paying her mortgage (or more importantly helping Maria to keep me in toys, rawhides, poached salmon and gourmet cups of gelato) was more important than my acting career.

There was also some fear that since all I would be required to do would be to sniff, that I would decide that all I did not feel like doing was to sniff-- especially if the director failed to fully explain my motivation (as a method actor, and also as a Hound, the correct motivation is essential). I have rather a colorful history of not doing what humans want me to do on general principle even if it is something I generally like to do. Since finding bombs and saving humanity is of minimal interest to Hounds, Elizabeth was planning to use a spray bottle containing water and a piece of raw liver and explain to me that I was really a cow sniffing dog and that if I followed the smell of the wet liver I would find the rest of the cow.

Also part of the gig was that an actor would have had to hold me while I was in costume (a tracking harness) which caused my humans to consider asking for the actor’s height, weight and bench pressing ability. I think a tracking harness would have been lovely--only surpassed by the piece of string I wear around my neck in the show ring in inducing a seriously impressive demonstration of the pulling power of the Hound. Anyway, I was sad not to be able to take advantage of this opportunity. A Hound needs new environments in which to be disruptive to keep his skills sharp.

Well the other news making the headlines these days is that it is again time for the national census. And every decade the conclusion of the exercise is the same: there are too many people and too few Hounds. I also think the census questions could have been better phrased.

The Wimsey Census

1. How many splendid Hounds are there living in your abode (count foster Hounds but not those that have been sent away to obedience school on account of having chewed a hole in the drywall).

2. Have any adorable but frighteningly destructive new Hound puppies been added to the residence since the time of the last census?

3. Is your current residence:

a) owned by a human slaving away to pay a mortgage to provide the Hound ample napping space and to give scope to the Hound’s remodeling abilities

b) owned by a human who has already paid off the mortgage and is now slaving away to pay for the Hound’s vet bills, artisanal gelato and top of the line kibble bills, toy bills, furniture replacement bills, frequent new landscaping and fencing bills and sound proofing to placate irate neighbors

c) rented by a human from a landlord who is deaf, absentee or hoping to declare a big insurance loss on the damage

d) occupied without payment of rent because you’ve been thrown out of your last place and your relatives are the only people who will take you in.

4) What is the telephone number at which we can contact your human and assess their psychiatric soundness relating to the whole living with a Hound situation.

5) Please provide information for each Hound living at this address: a) Registered name b) Call name (minus the obscenities)

6) What is the Hound’s sex: a) Bitch b) Hound with cohones c) Hound without cohones d) Hound without cohones who acts like he’s got them anyway

7) What is this Hound’s age: a) in human years b) in dog years c) in Hound years (subtract number of items Hound has stolen in the last month from its age in human years)

8) Is the Hound a) Spanish speaking b) English speaking c) French speaking d) German speaking e) Italian speaking f) non-compliant in all languages

9) What color is the Hound: a) an acceptable Hound color b) probably an acceptable Hound color if one could catch him and wash away the dirt c) the color of the paint in the cans in the garage.

10) Does the Hound live or stay someplace else: a) on a military base b) at a police precinct c) at Cesar Millan’s Dog Psychology Center


I think this would be a much more interesting census and, as an aside, have you ever noticed that very few Hounds make their appearance on dog training shows? I suspect that this is not owing to our inherently obedient natures.

Breaking News: This just in—Maria got her hair cut short! Now that we both have short red hair I intend to blame her for all the shedding going on around here. Also I got fed a lovely cup of Grom Gelato this afternoon as compensation for the lack of a cooked bunny to kick off Easter weekend. Perhaps lapin à la façon Wimsey should be stewed rabbit with vanilla Grom Gelato sauce. Yum. (as another aside I am sure the owners of Grom Gelato love the endorsement potential of a giant Hound slurping their product in front of waiting customers!)

And finally, Happy Easter! (Hope the fact that it is Good Friday doesn’t mean the Big Guy upstairs expects me to be good? Nah, he created me, he knows better).

Until next time,

Wimsey, nobody’s fool, everybody’s Hound