Alex has had bassets as part of his family ever since he was a young boy. When we purchased our first house, in 2002, and moved in, we felt it was missing something; we needed a dog. So we decided that we would look at getting a basset of our own. We knew very little back then about where to find one so started by looking in the paper. We found an ad for basset-x puppies for $25. That is how Homer, the basset/lab/coonhound came into our lives.
Soon we realized that we wanted another basset and as luck would have it, we found Sarge who was looking for a home of his own. So Sarge came to join our hound family and became Homer’s best buddy. Sarge was the type of dog who always looked worried and was very submissive. He got along with anyone and everyone he met. Sadly we lost our old man at age 13 yrs in August 2012.
We then started to volunteer for Basset Buddies Rescue, Inc and had many fosters come through our home. This included a few that we ended up failing with. Gerdie, Oliver and Maddie were our three foster failures over the past 7 years.
In 2010 and 2011 we had a lot of changes in our dog pack. In March 2010 we lost Homer, in July 2011 we lost Gerdie and in November 2011 we lost Madelyn. The weekend after loosing Gerdie was the Duluth, MN dog show, where I usually go to help wrangle hounds for Becky, Sue and Nancy. I had thought about not going since my heart was broken but instead decided it would be good for me to see all the hounds and my basset friends. They ended up inviting me over to Sue’s in Bayfield, WI to see Nancy’s puppies and this is where we met Henry and Eve for the first time. Henry was looking for a home and Eve was just a wee little puppy still. Henry ended up coming home with us that weekend.
After the show, they talked about basset hound nationals and said that I should join them. So I took some vacation and headed out to Kentucky with Nancy and Chuck. It was a week of learning, fun and lots of laughs. At the end of the week I was offered an opportunity of a lifetime, to co-own a show dog with Nancy. The beautiful hound would become part of the Jokela family and I would go to all the shows and learn the ropes of showing a basset in the ring for conformation. So I introduce, Rabbit Run Eveleth of Snowshoe! You will see us in the ring in the midwest!
