Amber Alert

      The phone rings, and it is Michelle, who lives maybe half a mile up the road from us. She is calling because a basset hound is trotting along her street and she wonders if it is our basset hound. I stick my head out the door, and there is Daisy, so I assure her that my hound is accounted for, and that I cannot think of anything that could induce Daisy to climb the huge hill between her house and ours. After hanging up with Michelle, I call Karen across the tracks, who has a much younger basset who is far more likely to be out wandering. Karen checks on Sadie, who is unexpectedly right where she should be. Then I call Elmo, which is a long shot because his basset is even older and less mobile than Daisy, and sure enough Bo is stationed firmly on the recliner (legend has it that Bo leaves the recliner only for biological necessity, and to wake his owners up early so they will turn up the heat).  I never did find out whose basset was at large, but I really enjoyed the small-town basset-check.