Dachshunds

I really didn’t have a topic to write on today so I thought I’d share with you my love of a particular breed of dog that I enjoy more than any single breed I’ve ever owned. The Dachshund.

Now a top ten dog breed in the United States, the dachshund was first bred in the 1600’s. It suffered in popularity in the US after WWI and wasn’t popularized again until the late 1970’s. The dog often marginalized as a “wiener dog” and made fun of for its odd proportions is actually not a companion dog or toy dog. It is a hunting dog.

Yes, a hunting dog. The dachshund was bred to fight badgers. Badgers are fierce and deadly little animals who rival wolverines for their tenacity and fight power. The dachshund was bred low and long so that it could follow the badger into its hole, flush it out and kill it.

The dachshund is a playful and friendly dog if socialized correctly. If not it can be a formidable watchdog, suspicious of strangers and its howl certainly can’t be easily disregarded. A good family dog, the dachshund is very aware of pack order and needs to be able to spend time with its master. The short hair needs very minimal grooming.

Our family includes a miniature dachshund named Wendell. He is very much my baby and usually looks at my SO as if he isn’t sure he is supposed to obey anything said by K. We were worried about Wendell with the baby, but now they are mates. Wendell scoots up to Z and touches his nose to his forehead or arm then darts away. Z will squeal with excitement and wave his arms and legs trying to reach Wendell.

I love my pets, but Wendell is a special little guy. My little “bug dog”, so called because he tends to scoot backward when he’s excited like certain types of beetles, is my buddy. He sleeps with momma, rocks in the rocking chair with momma and Z, sits with me and basically acts as my shadow. I couldn’t ask for a better companion.

What do you get when you cross a...

Kelly Kirch commented in the last post that she wanted one of Wendell’s pups. Well, Wendell has already done his only fatherly duty and it wasn’t exactly a happy moment. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that our 10 lb. mini doxie had knocked-up our 28 lb. cocker spaniel. Not even the vet is sure how this happened. But it did.

So here are some pics of the adorable products of that forbidden love and their star-crossed parents. Half cocker spaniel, half miniature dachshund. All four found homes almost immediately. We had over 100 phone calls for 4 dogs. It was crazy. We had each family sign a contract stating that if they had a problem with the dog they would return them to us. We did this more so that they knew they didn’t have to abandon the dog, they could just bring it back if it didn’t work out.

By the time the pups were ready to go, they were almost as big as dad. We named them (the pups) for Harry Potter characters. (clockwise from top left) Pigwidgeon, Wendell, Draco, Hermione, Shiloh and Neville. We discovered later we should have named Neville Padfoot since he kept escaping the welping box, despite the fact it had a lid. You'd turn around and there he was, chewing on your shoe lace --or your toe.

Did a stupid today. Not sure how I did it, don't actually remember doing it, but I woke up this morning on the floor next to my bed. Rather embarrassing. I now have a huge bruise on the back of my arm and my shoulder feels as if someone came at me with a sledge hammer. Of course my doctor isn’t in the office tomorrow to discuss this or the fact that the FDA has decided I can’t have my migraine medication. So I have to wait for Friday.

On a happier note, my precious is home tomorrow evening. And I still have a Valentine’s Day present that hasn’t been worn!

A Cry For Help

Okay, let’s get this straight right off the bat. I am not my mom. I’m Wendell. My mother is… well, we’ll get to that in a minute. My brother George, who isn’t really my brother because we’re not the same breed or anything but Mom calls him my brother, showed me how to do this so I’m taking my turn at blogging.

My name is Wendell the Snarfflehound. I earned this noble name because my mom had to do the doggie Heimlich maneuver on me several times as a puppy due to my tendency to snarffle down my food. I’ve out grown that and am now more commonly called Bug. Mom says I’m like a diddle bug because I hop backwards when I’m excited. I don’t think there is such a thing as a diddle bug, but I humor her. I am, in actuality a miniature dachshund, emphasis on the miniature. I weigh all of ten lbs. Everyone who sees me in the dog park or the local pet store thinks I’m still a puppy. I guess you could say at 5 years old, I’m aging well.

Now I’ve taken over my mother’s blog for one very important reason. This is a cry for help. I think she has finally gone round the bend. Tonight, when we should be cuddled on the couch watching an old movie…well, she watches the movie and I do the cuddling, we are not.

Is it because she’s writing? I don’t mind when Mom writes. She says one day when she’s rich from writing or wins the lottery we’re moving to a house in the country and she’s going to raise dachshunds. This sound good to me so I’m saying, butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, Mom. When Mom writes I have a very warm and snuggly red sweater that used to be Mom’s until I drug it off the couch one day and wrapped up in it. Then Gracie Sue came over (she’s the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and not the brightest pup in the world) and she chewed all the buttons off. Mom was rather irate. But now the red sweater is mine.

So did I spend this evening wrapped in my warm fuzzie? No. My mother, usually very sensitive to the needs of a mini doxie, took all of us outside into the backyard in the dark. In the dark! She sat on the back steps and just stared up at the trees. Now I like trees as much as the next dog, but come on. Why on earth were we sitting in the yard watching a bunch of scrawny old pine trees sway in the breeze? A strong breeze.

I crawled up on Mom’s lap to get a few answers. And do you know what she said? “Storm’s coming. I love storms.” She loves storms? Tetched I tell you, the woman is tetched.

So she sits there staring up at the cloud covered sky, not a star visible, and closes her eyes. She starts telling me about how when she was young she’d sit out on the front porch in the porch swing during storms and just rock and listen to the thunder and the rain. She even whispered that sometimes she would sing as she rocked, letting the sound of the storm drown out the fact that she can’t carry a tune.

So I’m sitting on her lap, the wind is blowing and it’s cold. Yes, cold. It had to be all of 65 degrees Fahrenheit. (I don’t know exactly what that works out to in Celsius, but for a mini doxie it’s cold.) The other dogs are running around the backyard like fools. I’m sitting there on Mom’s lap listening to her humming. And she’s not looking at me. I even did my best pitiful dachshund shiver for sympathy and she just patted my head and said it wasn’t that cold.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t, but I wanted to go inside! My fuzzie was inside. My food bowl is inside. My treats are inside. Everything I need is inside. Why am I sitting in the backyard?

It took positively forever, but finally Mom sighed and stood up. She said we had to go in so she could check her mail once more and go to bed. Finally she starts making some sense. Only the next time she pulls a stunt like this I’m calling the dachshund rescue people and filing a formal complaint.