Basset Hound Trivia
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49 free Basset Hound trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Basset Hound trivia quiz covers the low-slung scent hound from its name (French for 'rather low') to its place in pop culture. Questions run through the St Hubert's Hound and its Spartan ancestors, the 1585 La Venerie, Norman Staghound mutations, why footbound commoners prized short legs before the Revolution, Napoleon III's bronzed Bassets, the 1870 French breeding programmes and Everett Millais's Bloodhound cross that made the heavier English dog. The breed itself gets its due: nose second only to the Bloodhound, the heaviest bone for its size, dewlaps and ears, permitted colours, temperament, osteochondrodysplasia, glaucoma, bloat and the lifespan studies. Then the famous Bassets: Jason of Hush Puppies, Elvis's Sherlock, Fred Basset and his foreign aliases, Droopy's radio roots, Fred of Smokey and the Bandit, Flash and Flush of Hazzard, Columbo's Dog, Lafayette, Toby and Gabriel. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Dogs and Dachshund quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The name 'Basset' comes from the French word bas, meaning what?
Low
Low. With the diminutive -et it means 'rather low', and for centuries the word covered any low-set hound, not one breed, which is why the Basset Hound's early history is so hard to trace.
Q 02The Basset Hound was bred primarily to hunt what?
Rabbit and hare
Rabbit and hare. The hound's job was to push them out of dense brush toward the hunters, at a pace slow enough to follow on foot.
Q 03The Basset Hound's nose is said to be second only to that of which breed?
The Bloodhound
The Bloodhound. English breeders crossed the two in the 1890s to bring fresh blood and size into an inbred line, and the cross fixed the modern Basset's type.
Q 04In 1883 an English earl brought some of America's first recorded Bassets to his ranch in which state?
Texas
Texas. Lord Aylesford, shut out of English society after a divorce scandal, had just bought a cattle ranch at Big Spring and brought a pair over to hunt with.
Q 05Relative to its size, the Basset Hound holds what distinction among all breeds?
It is the heaviest-boned
It is the heaviest-boned. The American standard calls it heavier in bone, size considered, than any other breed, which is how a hound under 15 inches tall can top 60 pounds.
Q 06The Basset Hound's stubby legs and thick body make it notoriously poor at what?
Swimming
Swimming. The breed has trouble in the water because of its small legs and dense body, the same build that makes it a slow, steady tracker on land.
Q 07What is the loose skin around a Basset Hound's neck called?
The dewlap
The dewlap. As a Basset tracks with its head down, the loose folds help hold smells close to the nose.
Q 08What is the purpose of the Basset Hound's characteristically long ears?
To stir up ground scent
To stir up ground scent. As the hound trots, the ears sweep smells up toward its nose; the price is poor airflow inside them, so owners are told to clean the ears every week.
Q 09By the American breed standard, a Basset Hound's ears should be long enough to do what when drawn forward?
Fold over the nose
Fold over the nose. The British standard is more restrained: it asks for ears reaching 'only slightly beyond' the muzzle, 'but not excessively so'.
Q 10The UK Kennel Club's breed standard sums up the Basset Hound's temperament as affectionate and what?
Placid
Placid. The standard adds 'never aggressive or timid' and the American one says 'mild, never sharp or timid', as suits a hound bred to live and work in a pack.
Q 11The Basset Hound's short, crooked legs come from an inherited form of what?
Dwarfism
Dwarfism. An extra copy of one growth-factor gene, shared with dachshunds, corgis and more than a dozen other breeds, keeps the leg bones short.
Q 12Owners are told not to let a Basset Hound jump down from cars, to protect what?
Spine
Spine. All that weight strung between short legs strains the discs between the vertebrae, and a slipped disc can cause pain or even paralysis.
Q 13What was the leading cause of death for Basset Hounds in a 2004 UK Kennel Club survey?
Cancer
Cancer, behind 31 per cent of the 142 deaths owners reported, with old age next at 13. Even so, the breed slightly outlived the survey's average, reaching a median of 11 years and 4 months.
Q 21Why were short-legged hounds so prized in old France?
Only aristocrats could hunt on horseback
Only aristocrats could hunt on horseback, so everyone else needed a hound slow enough to follow on foot. When the Revolution all but ended the mounted hunts, bassets boomed.
Q 22Which French ruler's Bassets were shown in bronze at the 1853 Paris Salon?
Napoleon III
Napoleon III. Emmanuel Frémiet's bronzes of his hounds were soon followed by official work, including a series of military statuettes made for the emperor himself.
Q 23Pops, an elderly Basset Hound whose back legs are paralysed, joins the search party in which animated film?
Q 14The Kennel Club's 2018 DNA test for Basset Hounds screens for which inherited eye disease?
Glaucoma
Glaucoma. A single recessive mutation causes the breed's inherited form, so apparently healthy hounds can carry it; the test lets breeders avoid mating two carriers.
Q 15Bloat, a deadly emergency to which Basset Hounds are prone, is the gas-filled twisting of which organ?
Stomach
Stomach. It swells with gas and food and then twists, cutting off its own blood supply, which is why many owners have it surgically tacked to the abdominal wall.
Q 16Bassets are said to descend from hounds of an abbey named for which patron saint of hunters?
St Hubert
St Hubert. Monks at his abbey in the Ardennes bred hunting hounds for wealthy and royal clients, and the Basset type is thought to come from that stock.
Q 17Because Basset Hounds were bred to work in packs, owners are warned that many hate what?
Being left alone
Being left alone. The AKC calls Bassets so pack-oriented that they can suffer from loneliness, and suggests anyone considering one hound think about getting two.
Q 18Shakespeare's hounds with 'ears that sweep away the morning dew', much like early Bassets, appear in which play?
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Theseus is boasting about his crook-kneed, slow-moving pack to Hippolyta at dawn, moments before the pair find the four lovers asleep in the wood.
Q 19A French hunting manual of 1561, the earliest to describe bassets, shows them going to earth after foxes and what?
Badgers
Badgers. Jacques du Fouilloux's La Vénerie described two kinds of basset and rated the short-coated, crook-legged kind the better badger dog, because it would stay longer underground.
Q 20The Kennel Club standard credits the Basset Hound with a pack instinct and what kind of voice?
Deep and melodious
Deep and melodious. Packs traditionally trail their quarry noisily toward the waiting guns, and the AKC still notes that a Basset 'barks in a loud, ringing voice'.
The Secret Life of Pets
The Secret Life of Pets. Dana Carvey voices Pops, whom the Pomeranian Gidget recruits, along with a hawk, to help track down her missing neighbour Max.
Q 24Which small hound did Victorian breeders cross into the inbred Basset Hound?
Beagle
Beagle. England's early Bassets descended from a handful of French imports, so breeders tried Beagle crosses first and, in the 1890s, a far bigger hound to add size.
Q 25Which future queen consort kept a kennel of Basset Hounds at Sandringham in the late 1800s?
Queen Alexandra
Queen Alexandra. As Princess of Wales she joined the supporters of the Basset Hound Club soon after it was founded in 1884, giving the newly imported breed a royal backer.
Q 26Who is considered the father of the modern Basset Hound?
Everett Millais
Everett Millais. He bought the French hound Model at a Paris show in 1874 and exhibited him at Wolverhampton the next year, the first Basset shown in England.
Q 27How did an 1890s breeder manage to cross a Basset Hound with a much larger hound?
Artificial insemination
Artificial insemination, a fairly novel idea at the time. The mother, a far larger hound named Inoculation, then delivered twelve pups by caesarean section.
Q 28The classic Basset Hound tricolour, named first in the Kennel Club standard, is black, white and what?
Tan
Tan. The standards are relaxed about the rest: any recognised hound colour is acceptable, and the American one adds that the distribution of colour and markings 'is of no importance'.
Q 29A Basset Hound will bark at a visitor, so why is it rated a poor guard dog?
It befriends strangers
It befriends strangers. Its bark makes it a decent watchdog, but the AKC warns it is more likely to make friends with unexpected guests than to chase them off.
Q 30How does Colonel Morrison's hunting strain of Basset differ from the traditional type?
Shorter ears
Shorter ears. After the war more of his hunt's country went under the plough, so Morrison wanted a more active hound and crossed a Harrier into his Westerby pack in 1950.