Ernie's Humble Beginnings

At the plump age of 13 I convinced my parents that every child should have a puppy of their own at some point in their life. Thus the spark of Ernie was created, later to become a consuming and passionate fire that engulfed the hearts of my family, neighborhood and metro Louisville. Now I must mention that Ernie had a predecessor: Stonewall Foster. Stonewall was a true basset.

Born in 1981, he was my parents first child. He was the table we learned to lift ourselves up on as babies and our great protector against the dreaded Sue Johnson who came on Tuesdays and made my four-year-old sister watch soaps in the afternoons. ANYWAY, Stoney bit the dust after 12 years of begging and baying. In the end it was his nose that got him. The inside of a garbage can on Highway 1793 was the last thing he saw. Mom said at least he died happy. I was not consoled.

Between he and Ernie there was an ex-show dog named Pudgie who no one liked but my parents. Pudgie felt likewise. A cardigan welsh corgi, (the breed pictured though not Pudgie exactly). He had duck tape on his ears and fear in his eyes and he didn't last long. He met his fate one morning while running what we affectionately called the Pudgie 500.

He was only five. My mother still can't discuss it.

A few years passed, dogless and empty before I convinced everyone that another basset hound was imperative. Our dogish family had been without a dog for going on two years and that was unacceptable. So my dad made some calls and off we went to see a man about a dog on a puppy farm in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.


Oh, what did you say? You've never heard of it? I'm scandalized. Because it just so happens that in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky there is a little road called Pumphouse that winds its way up up and up from the highway. And at the end of that seemingly desolate little road is a thing I am sure was taken straight from my wildest dreams-cages and cages of a hundred barking puppies. Black labs and basset hounds- the two best dogs on earth.

Now, to get specifically to the part where Ernie makes his grand entrance. In a little cage of bassets with a mother and father was a little pile of puppies. There were tri-colors and liver and whites. There were big ones and small ones. Fat ones and tall ones.
Sleepy and feisty and hungry and ornery.


And then I saw it- the one I had to have. I picked it up up and up and then held it close and breathed in its baby scent imagining all the things we would do together once this dog was mine. And then my father said "UH UH. That's a girl. We must have a boy. We MUST have a boy." And so as my soul broke into pieces I put my pup down. BUT THAT'S WHEN I SAW HIM. At the bottom of the puppy pile was another who looked JUST like the other. And I let my heart hope hope HOPE that it would have a wienie so I could keep keep KEEP IT. I reached into the puppy pile and pulled the tiniest little runt out from under all the other pups. And YES- a boy pup! And that was that. They took him and bathed him and gave him shots that made him cry. And I watched with my fat little 13-year-old face just dying to get him back. And when he was clean and dewormed like a new baby to its mother they put him in my arms. And I swaddled him in the only towel my mother would let me bring for a dog- a sick Tropicana Twisters one that was old as mold. And I held him like a baby for the next five months of his life swaddled and coddled. And that's how I found the best dog in the world.