Welcome! I am Wimsey, the Manhattan Bloodhound, and no, I have not misspelled my name. I am named after a great British fictional detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, who was created in the 1930s by mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers. Lord Peter was a sensitive and sophisticated guy who solved crimes with the assistance of his manservant Bunter. I too have assistants in my exploits, except that my Bunter is female. Technically, she is my owner, but both of us know that she is really Bunter (her mother thinks her name is Maria, but I think Bunter suits her better). I have several more folks in my entourage who are quite talented, but more about that later.

First let us begin at the beginning. I was born on March 19, 2004 in Ramsey, Illinois to a large fellow named Stetson (Ch. RMZ Crk Walk On The Wild Side) and his lady who was called Rum (Ewine’s Rum of Ramsey Creek). As is often the way of these things, Rum was a nice, retiring mannerly bloodhound while Stetson was bold and rambunctious. I like to think that I have inherited at least something of my mother’s sensitive nature as well as my father’s quite lively disposition. You will have of course realized that I am born under the astrological sign of Pisces. As a Pisces, it is natural for me to have a sensitive and artistic nature. Pisces are often musical and I have a very fine singing voice, which can be heard all over my neighborhood and in Central Park when I am in the mood. (As an artist I must have the proper inspiration for the use of my instrument).

In any case, at the tender and impressionable age of 3 months, I was loaded into a car and driven to Manhattan by a nice red haired lady (more about this later) who shows dogs. Manhattan, I was ready to take it by storm! At first I was so little I could not climb the steps to my apartment! Ah, it was a beautiful time, I had my human wrapped around my little paw, she carried me up and down the stairs ‘til she said I got too big and had to walk by myself. Just because I weighed 40 pounds! Boy are those days gone—I grew like a canine weed and now weigh in at a majestic 125 lbs. I use this weight to great advantage when I want to go somewhere that my human companions do not (like nipping into the local police station to say howdy to all my buddies in New York ’s Finest). And the good news is (for me, that is), that I will fill out still more! I hear my human companions muttering things about finding personal trainers to bulk up, which I know will be a complete waste of time. But as I say, I was at one time quite petite and the memories of how pleasurable it was to sit on human laps has never left me and I see absolutely no reason why I should deny myself this pleasure merely due to my increased size. You would be amazed at how much of myself I can fit and drape over a human. Of course, they do sometimes emit small squeaking noises and yelps, but this I interpret as expressions of sheer pleasure at the proximity of my being.

Anyway, at first I found Manhattan to be quite noisy, crowded and my living space rather small. But then I realized that there were all these people on the street, which meant that there were all these people who would want to say hi to me. And pet me. And admire me. And coo at me. And give me biscuits. And better yet, a lot of these people were often accompanied by dogs and would present them for me to play and wrestle with. (I keep in tip top wrestling shape by wrestling my human for the bed every night; she enjoys this very much). And there were such wonderful and abundant smells! And I realized that the small living space had two huge advantages: first, it was impossible for my human to avoid or ignore me (not of course that she would ever want to) and secondly, something about the small space made her feel the urgent need to spend vast amount of time with me just down the street in Central Park. Now, I could just write reams about Central Park. It is huge. It has a little forest called the Ramble for me to stalk squirrels in, it has a Castle for me to look out over the park from and bay in enjoyment at, it has a stream for me to get a drink from, it has fields, it has meadows and it even has a bridle path where I can smell the delicious odor of horse and track their hoof prints. (I also kind of think it would be fun to mess with them a little, but I do bow to the rules of etiquette on this one). And of course there are people and dogs in great profusion. Also, tourists from all over the world with cameras - all trained on me! And in the middle of the day, I have a standing engagement with my personal runner, Holly from Running Paws (www.runningpaws.com), who takes me to another nearby park called Riverside Park for a good jog. My run is supposed to relax me and help me work off some of my vast stores of energy, but really it just gets me in shape for my two long evening walks, whose purpose is for me to tow humans at high rates of speed. They enjoy this quite a lot as they always seem to be calling my name and addressing admiring remarks to me. And friendly passers by seem also to find great amusement in these outings. Why would my humans need to join a gym when they have me! I am thinking of presenting my bill for personal training services.

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