I Thought I Thaw a Putty Tat

Yesterday on my walk, my mom and I passed by the crazy cat house that has TONS of cats, or as my mom and pa call them, my arch-nemeses. Since I am a basset hound and have a keen sense of smell, I was hot on the trail of all those putty tats.

(Click on the image to make it bigger.)

I know they're around here somewhere. Which way did they go?

Sweet Sadie

It's official. The number one dog in the country shares my name (and my tendency to wee on the carpet). Congratulations, Sweet Sadie!

Got any treats you could share?

Best in Show Sadie?

It's that time of year again. The time of year where my mom practices having me run across the den on a leash beside her, turn, and run back again. Yup, if only I weren't fixed and if only my mom had an evening gown and a pair of SAS shoes.

It's WESTMINSTER, y'all!


The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show -- the Super Bowl for Hounds -- will air live tonight on USA from 8 to 9 p.m., then will switch to CNBC from 9 until 11 p.m. Tonight will feature the HOUNDS (go hounds!), toy, non-sporting and herding. Tomorrow night will showcase the sporting, working and terrier groups, and finally -- BEST IN SHOW!!! Tomorrow night, the entire event will be on USA from 8 until 11 p.m.

I am torn...I don't know whether to root for the HOUNDS:


Or a Scottish terrier, who is actually favored to win. I normally wouldn't root for a terrier, but this terrier's name is Sadie! She is four years old and has won more than 100 best in show ribbons and is the overwhelming favorite to complete dogdom's Triple Crown this week at Westminster.


Alas, Sadie has not always had good luck at Westminster. Last year she got spooked and the year before that she took a wee (that's what my English relatives call it) on the carpet inside Madison Square Garden. How embarrassing! I would never do anything like that. Poor Sadie. I think I am going to have to root for her.

Let the games begin!

Be Mine

Today is Valentine's Day, a day to celebrate love, companionship and friendship. Oh, and don't forget the candy and treats.

I'd like to wish a very happy day to my most special friends back in the snow in Macon. Here's a picture of me and my friend Ellie. (She's on the left, in case you can't tell. She should have a blog titled Six FEET High and Rising.)

I also would like to send a bark out to my buds Sunny and Buddy. They lived next door to me in Macon and I have run many a lap around their back yard. (Their mom calls it the Hound Dog 400.)

Here's Sunny:


And here's Buddy:

Even though I have moved to Savannah and made new friends, I still love my friends back in Macon. Remember: make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold. Plus, all of them could have treats.

Speaking of F-U-D, I have to wish a very happy Valentine's Day to my Mom and Pa. I love them so much, and not just because they give me S-U-P-P-E-R. They take me on trips and on long walks around Daffin Park. They give me belly rubs and a soft bed at night. They make sure I stay healthy and happy.

Snow Bunny

About 8 o'clock last night, snow started to fall in Savannah. Now, I have seen snow before but never in Savannah. It melted as soon as it hit the wet ground, but it sure was fun to watch while it was coming down.

Here's my house in the snow:


And here's a picture of me watching it fall to the ground. I haven't seen it in so long, I was a little confused as to what exactly it was.


Watching all that winter weather made me so tired, I had to go back inside and check my eyelids for light leaks. Happy Snow Day, y'all!

Whose Woods These Are I Think I Know

The National Weather Service is predicting winter weather for Savannah this evening. That means snow! My mom says she heard that the last time it snowed in Savannah, it was 1996, so I wasn't even a thought then!

The last time it snowed in Savannah, my mom was in graduate school in Athens and gas was $1.25 a gallon. And I was -10 years old.

I know just the other day I was dreaming of warm weather and spring, but today I am dreaming of snow. It's a hound's prerogative to change her mind, after all. Here's a pic of me enjoying the snow at my old home in Macon last year:




Also, here's a video that will let you know what I enjoy more than snow:



Stay safe and warm, everybody!

Spring Fever Sadie

The weather today in Savannah is overcast (again), gray (again) and drizzly (again). While I'm inside staying dry, I can't help but dream of spring:

A few weekends ago, the weather was actually warm enough to laze around outside and take naps in the sun puddles. That's what my pa calls them. Here I am all stretched out and dreaming of chasing squirrels:


Ahh, spring. So much to look forward to with your blooming azaleas, warm sunshine and daylight savings time. Well, as my mom's PaPa used to say, "What did the monkey say when the train ran over its tail? Won't be long now!"

The BEST Papillote Lunch Ever (for Hyacinth)

Sadie's mom here again. My aunt Faye (aka Hyacinth aka Auntie O) is known for saying something is the BEST ever. So here's the best lunch I have ever had at Papillote (to top off an afternoon of storytelling):

• Duck confit slider burgers
• Watercress salad with shaved radishes and vinaigrette dressing
  
• Potato logs fried in duck fat
• Pinot Noir

For the record, this is probably not Weight Watchers-friendly so Sadie and I took a lap around Daffin Park when I got home.

Savannah Stylus

As Sadie's mom, one of the things I like best about Savannah is the opportunity to participate in a variety of cultural events. There's the Savannah Music Festival, the Savannah Film Festival, and one of my favorites, the Jewish Food Festival (kugel, anyone?). This weekend is the Third Annual Savannah Book Festival, and while I was worried the weather might keep me away, I pulled on my polka-dotted Wellie boots, braved the gray skies and drizzly rain and headed down to Telfair Square.

More than 30 authors gave (free!) talks today in categories such as contemporary issues, history and biography, fiction, poetry and lifestyle. It's a good opportunity to meet and interact with well-known authors and learn about writers you've never heard of before. Following their talks, the writers sign books in the book sales tent outside. Here was the scene earlier today over on West President Street (the sun even decided to make a cameo):


Now I don't know about you, but there is something refreshing to me about seeing people buy books. Real, honest-to-god books with paper. Not this Kindle crap or iPad idiocy. There will never be a digital substitute for the feeling you get when you crack open a book for the first time, smooth down the pages and breathe in that smell of ink on paper.

The book festival also serves as a source of inspiration to me as a wannabe writer in that you get to hear how other writers hone their craft. All of the writers I heard today - Lauretta Hannon, Rick Bragg and Robert Leleux - said they write by listening. Hannon, the author of The Cracker Queen: A Memoir of a Jagged, Joyful Life, said she regards language as music, paying close attention to the rhythm of the words she selects. Rick Bragg, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over But the Shoutin' (aka the Southern version of Angela's Ashes), discussed his writing simply as something he had to do. And Robert Leleux, a first-time author of The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy, hilariously confessed that he was a writer because, as an only child worshiped by his mother, he came to believe it was his destiny because she inordinately trumpeted a poem he had written as a six-year-old.

All of these writers revel (some may say "wallow") in their Southernness. Rick Bragg talked about giving a voice to the roofers and whiskey-makers and barfighters of his northeast Alabama upbringing. Lauretta Hannon sang the praises of "Co-Cola" and such Southernisms as "stove up" while recounting stories about her mama, chain gangs and cigarettes. And Robert Leleux accurately noted that Jane Eyre would never have been written in the South because we don't stash our madwomen away in the attic; they freely roam the streets (and sometimes climb our family trees).

Rainy Days and Fridays Always Get Me Down

It's days like this - rainy, cold and windy - that can really get a hound down and make her miss those that are no longer with us. Like my friend Kate here. She went to play in God's backyard last month and I know her mom is really missing her today. (Her mom also said she was a poodle, but I am not so sure.) Or my predecessor, Beauregard (below), who my mom referred to as a "model citizen."

But it is the nature of the basset hound to be perpetually happy, so you just have to find a way to wag your tail and keep going. I like to remember fellow furbabies by doing something nice for other animals. My mom volunteers with Coastal Pet Rescue, an organization that provides pet rescue to homeless pets through local county animal shelters, placement assistance for owners needing to place their pets, and a feral cat trap-neuter-return program. They also serve as an educational resource to the community, providing humane education opportunities and low-cost microchipping clinics. Since I came from an all volunteer non-profit, no-kill rescue group myself, I always like to help out when I can. After my mom and I moved to Savannah (and into a much smaller house), we went through my toys and got rid of duplicates and ones I didn't play with any more by donating them to Coastal Pet Rescue.

Speaking of Coastal Pet Rescue, today is their seventh birthday (that's 49 in dog years!) and to celebrate they're having a birthday bash at TailsSpin tomorrow from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Habersham Village Shopping Center on the corner of Habersham and E. 61st Streets. There will be cake and an adoption session during the event. With every pet adoption, TailsSpin will be offering a free engraved pet ID tag, a free small bag of dog food, and 10% off the day’s purchase. So if you're in the Savannah area, come on out and find your furever friend. Or, find a similar organization in your community. Sadie and the furbabies will thank you!

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

For me, the best part of each day - other than 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. when I must be fed on.the.dot - is when my mom comes home from work. If it's nice weather, that means I get to take a walk around my neighborhood and unwind from my long day of napping at home alone.

My new neighborhood has a name - Ardsley Park - and it was voted the best neighborhood in Savannah. The plan of Ardsley Park, a regular grid with landscaped squares, is a 20th century variant of Oglethorpe's original city plan. It is made up of all the homes bounded by Victory Drive on the north to 55th Street on the south, and by Waters Avenue on the east to Bull Street on the west.

Enough history, on to the important stuff. Usually we walk through the park at Battey and on until we get to where one of my new friends, Griffindore, lives. I call him Griffin for short. He waits on the steps of his house and when he sees me and my mom walking down Battey, he starts howling like some kind of basset hound. Actually, that's because he is a basset hound. He looks just like me except he is brown where I am white.

After leaving Griffin's house we walk past the house with the ginormous lemon tree. We have to walk down this street because my mom has a fixation with any kind of citrus trees. I heard my pa say it is a sickness. Anyway, we continue walking to another park where other people are walking their dogs too. I always try to make friends, because you can never have too many friends, especially if they have treats. This park has lots of trees, and I almost always see squirrels, my favorite things to chase. Maybe one day I will catch one, but until then, it's back to my house, where I patiently await the 7 p.m. question, "Sadie, do you want supper?"

Greetings and Salutations

Hello, there. My name is Sadie and I am a basset hound. My full name is Sadie Maybelle Fullbright (I was named after Mother Maybelle Carter - my mother is a big country music fan), but I usually just go by Sadie, Sadie May, Monkey Butt, Whistle Britches or Do-Ro. (My Pop Pop gave me the name Do-Ro...it's a combination of Do-Do and Moron.) I was also once described as a "long dog." That is true, but I am not very tall, thus the title of this blog.

My favorite things are chewing sticks, going for long walks in Daffin Park, riding in my Pa's Fiat, chasing balls and playing with my chew toys. Oh, and I also enjoy having a fish on my line, which is a euphe-, a euphe-, another way of saying I like to sleep. My very favorite thing in the whole world though is f-u-d, especially s-u-p-p-e-r.

Last October, my mom and I moved to the historic town of Savannah near the coast of Georgia. We'll use this blog to document our adventures and discoveries along the way.