Conduct an internet search on “Basset pouch,” and you’ll get page after page of purses, handbags, tote bags and clutches rocking a Basset Hound somewhere on them. That’s not the kind of pouch we’re about to discuss.

That the Basset is a wonderful mass of wrinkles and saggy skin is undisputed, but there is a “method to that madness” that is better described as form following function. This is a hunting dog, a trailing specialist for hunters on foot. A shorter legged dog enables a hunter to keep up with the dog, but it also puts the dog in the thick of the undergrowth as he plows through the branches and twigs of brush, shrubs, and thickets. As the dog lowers his head to pick up a scent, its long velvety ears help bring smells directly to its face, while his dewlap, the loose skin underneath its chin, helps trap them. Loose skin on his body gives him protection when running through undergrowth, particularly on his legs where wrinkles of skin appear between the hock joint and the foot. At the back of the hock joint there might be, for lack of a better word, a “sack” of loose skin, but there is a better word for this loose skin overhanging the point of hock, and it is “pouch.”

Mind you, excessive loose skin is unhelpful in the field. This is a dog capable of great endurance, and too much of anything is not desirable.

Image: Basset Hound Sunset by DJ Rogers – k9artgallery
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