A shout-out for tie-dye

It's Maggie: I'm amazed at the how black is the new white for this year's US Open tennis competitors. And I know I look really good in black, but I'm not sweating out on a tennis court. In fact, I'm not sweating it out anywhere. Someone else can do that...when they say "working like a dog," they are not referring to me.
Anyway, I think this year's clothing is really overmanaged by Nike. Can we get some tie-dye T-shirts out there? My mom's favorite shirts are tie-dye, and she's always happy when she's wearing them. I'm pretty sure she could kick someone's ass wearing one.
Back to the Open: Let's talk headgear a second: It should be a rule that your hat matches your clothes. Serena has the right idea. Her headband matched the pink in her outfit. She didn't look like a farmer or a soccer mom. I approve.

I'm no fashionista, but...

It's Maggie, and this week I'm going to keep you up on the US Open. I'm not big on watching people sweat, so you can keep up with the scores on your own. What I've seen so far bothers me a great deal.
- U.S. tennis player Ashley Harkleroad: Girl, didn't your mama teach you not to wear stripes going around? Her dog should have sabotaged that outfit before Ashley left the house.
- Is that strange bluish green really going to be this year's "in" color? I've counted at least 5 players wearing that color, men and women. Do all the activewear companies get together and decide what color will make the most people look stupid? Do the execs sit up in the plush box seats and laugh when they get the stars to wear the free clothes? I wouldn't even sniff underwear that color.
- And Andy, oh Andy: This whole black ensemble may make your beer gut look a bit smaller, but Johnny Cash, you ain't. And it's freaking hot outside! What are you thinking? Obviously, you didn't even ask your dog for help. No way would it sanction that -- would he add more fur in summer just to look skinny? I think not.
- To Justin Gimelstob/Gummiburp/Googlesnort/Whatever: I like you, but the yellow diagonals have to go. And the shirt doesn't even match your shorts. Get your dog to pull some new ones out of the laundry hamper for you.
And my final question for the night:
- Why is Maria Sharapova wearing her Christmas party dress on the court? Has she got a poodle as a wardrobe advisor?

That's it for tonight. I've got to go make Bandit get his ass off my pillow.

Fuzzy-ball holidays

From Bandit: We refer to Labor Day -- and the 4th of July -- as fuzzy-ball time. In our experience, fuzzy balls have been things we chase across the yard to humor mom and dad. But, in our house, they are on TV. If we are at the beach, Aunt Jenn (left) usually hits the champagne early and eats strawberries. Mom has a thing about making pancakes and forcing everyone to eat them. Then she makes a pitcher of Bloody Marys; sometimes, she shares. Dad and Uncle Brad just watch the game, roll on the floor and scratch their backs with us. The important thing is that there's always Wimbledon or US Open tennis on the TV. And this Labor Day will be no different. Maggie's planning to blog for the week about the Open, because her friend Sidda will not be able to watch. Sidda's sick, and it's important that Maggie keep her up to date on the action. As for me, fuzzy balls are about as close as I'll get to ever having any again.

Ernie's turn

It's Ernie: The dogs are outside on the porch where they belong. I'm tired of their barky crap. If I could reach the keys, I'd just lock them on the porch all night. Every time George the neighbor goes in or out, they act like they've never seen him before. And he's nice to them, too.

Last night, they stayed in the bedroom for a while, and all Maggie did was growl over her purple toy. Poor Bandit couldn't even get any peace and ended up trying to hide from her. I really don't understand why she gets that way, and I surely don't understand how Bandit puts up with it. When we lived at our old house, she'd chase him across the yard and try to herd him like he's a cow or something. She's really a bitch.

New stuff

We just added a poll to our site. It's in the left rail.
Questions will get better, we promise.

Thundering attack dogs

Mom says we can't go outside when it's thundering and lightning. But it's ok for Dad to keep mowing? ......We're just asking.

Speaking of Dad: Today we bring you a video of us attacking Dad.
It's really a play attack, but from it, we think you can glean how vicious we could be if we were really angry.
Scary, isn't it?

(Thanks to Aunt Jenn for documenting this for us. )

Mom went to the wine store

...and boy, are we glad. She's been out of wine for more than a week, and she grumped about it every night. It's not that she's a lush or anything, but she believes that a glass of wine each night is a good thing. It's healthy, but mostly it's just her way to wind down at night. When we lived at the beach, she found that crossing the big bridge was really important, too. Just going onto the island made her relax. She was a zombie by the time she got in the house.

As hard-working dachshunds, we treasure our routines, too. It's important that we get to come in from the porch around 9 and then go back to the bedroom and get snacky treats from dad. We get three snackies each. Then we play for a bit, or until Maggie gets grumpy. Dad takes us outside for a nightly poop before we go to bed. When we come in, Maggie goes in the laundry room first, and Bandit must have his ears scratched before he'll go. It's a rule.
This is important: We all need a process to end one day and start another. Even doggies like us.

Cool signs!

From Maggie: Uncle Brad told us about a web site where you can make your own signs. We took turns today making signs while mom and dad were gone. It was fun. Guess which one is Bandit's.

Grumpy boy and nothing for us

From Maggie: We spent a day with dad, and he got mad at us because Bandit kept trying to steal my favorite toy. He just kept looking at me. I had to fight back. He was so grumpy that I couldn't even snuggle with him without him barking at me. It's my toy, though.

And another thing: Mom got home and didn't even bring us anything. She brought Dad some pizza from some place he likes, but nothing for us. She stayed with Seamus and Sidda and only brought pictures back of their parents. They do have a cool house in Bibb City. Mom says they even have a toilet in the guest room. I can't figure out why that's a big deal.

I'm really happy to hear Sidda's still figuring our how to get out from Uncle Brad's new fence. She's keeping up the tradition for us all. We did have kind of a breakthrough on Saturday when we found a hole in the backdoor neighbor's fence. Now we can go all the way over to the next street before we get caught. Mom's a bit irritated by that, but again, that's what she gets for not bringing us anything from her trip.

Mom's back

From Bandit: Mom came back late from her road trip, and we were really glad to see her. Dad was gone some, and then he came home and we watched him watch a ballgame. He cursed a lot, and we think his team lost. But he dropped a lot of corn chips, so that was good. Then it was bedtime and we went to the bedroom with him. He was going to let us sleep in the house! Mom usually makes us go to the laundry room. She says we make too much noise.

Well, dad went to sleep and Maggie blew it for both of us. She had her stupid purple toy and every time I'd look at it she'd snap and growl. It's a stupid purple round piece of cloth, and you'd think it was a dead bird or something. Then she'd try to make nice and come over and crawl on my pillow and I'd be forced to bark her back. She just couldn't leave me alone. Finally, dad yelled at us and made us go to the laundry room. Maggie's a bitch. I'm going to go dig up a mole hole.

Road trip for mom

Mom's getting her stuff together. She says she's going on a short road trip, and I think she's going to see our beagle frineds, Seamus and Sidda. She's also not going to take us.
But dad's ready for her to go off. He's setting the DVR for a Cardinals-Cubs game. So, that means we get to roll around on the carpet tomorrow night and eat whatever snacks he drops.
The weekend's looking good.

Birdie snacks

We know we promised a few days ago to tell the story about our friends Molly and Sidney and how birds invaded their house. It was terrible; Aunt Lesley thought she was being attacked. Molly and Sidney were at boarding school during that part, but when they came home their house had been a giant roost for several chimney swifts for several days, and there were carcasses on the floor. It was pretty nasty, and there had been a terrible fight that left blood, bird poo and feathers all over. They talked to their indoor cat friend Jake, who could only reply with a big belch. Jake had eaten all he could, but there were still 2 live birds in the house. Aunt Lesley got help to get the birds out, and it took all day to put things back in order. Didn't sound like fun to us at all. We think the cat should have done more.

They are found

From Maggie: Aunt Jenn and Uncle Brad are home. They got stuck on an airplane for a really long time and then in an airport. I think they couldn't go outside for a long time.
That must've hurt.

Has anyone seen our buddies?

Uncle Brad and Aunt Jenn have been gone, but they should be back by now.
Has anyone seen them? They went to Cambodia where we hear they have dog dishes. We wonder if they brought one back for Seamus and Sidda.

Wait..... Mom says that's not what that means........Yuk.
Nevermind.

A great day to dig!

From Bandit: It's such a good day. I dug up a bunch of old ferns. I rooted in the garden. I discovered a dead bird I buried yesterday and rolled on it. I got so much dirt up my nose I sneezed it on the porch in the shape of a duck. Is it dinnertime yet?

Not funny ha-ha

Cats are funny -- not funny ha-ha, funny bizarre, you know. (Dad's been watching "Sling Blade" again.)

We like our Ernie a lot, but he's still a cat. And he's never done anything like our friend Phil's cat did to him on his birthday last year -- we think it was last year.
While we find it unbelievable that Philip Wartena is actually 30, we're positively stunned by Ashes' antics. Click here to hear Phil's description. And please look at the rest of his blog, too. He's a fantastic photographer who doesn't deserve to be treated this way (well, most of the time...ok, some of the time).
This move was typical cat ingratitude; after all, Phil did take her in after our friend Mel rescued the kitty from a fire.

We don't want you to think that we don't like all cats, we are just realistic about their betrayal tendencies. These are our friends Robin and Georgie in a wonderful photo by Phil on his flickr site. One time they came to see us and brought a cat and that was fun. They can come back to visit any time. (Robin's a wonderful photographer, too. Check out her beautiful work here.)

Woohoo! It's coming!

Every year something wonderful happens. Hundreds of us lowdogs gather for a magnificent time where all the world is focused only on us. (Granted, it should be that way all the time, but we all know it's not.)

We're talking about the annual Savannah Wiener Dawg Races. It's the greatest event in the world, and those silly Olympics things every few years pale in comparison. This year's event will be Oct. 6 on Savannah's River Street. Hundreds of us played together last year, and there will be more this year. Here's a link to a slideshow from the Savannah Morning News coverage in 2006. (When you open the page, click again on the slideshow link.) The pictures will give you some idea of the scene where all dachshunds are winners.

The event benefits Dachshund Rescue and helps other wonderful dog groups, too. If you love dogs like us, you can volunteer to help out at the races. Or if you've got a wiener dog, bring him or her to watch or race. There will be plenty of fun activities for humans and pups. We'll post more details before the races.
We can't wait!!!!

It's Friday night

I can tell mom and dad are glad to be home tonight, and we're glad they are home. They usually are tired on Fridays, and they just sit around, eat frozen pizza and watch Law+Order reruns like zombies. We try to play with them, but they don't want to play chase or roll in the floor.
So it's a good thing we like L+O, too, because mom will watch several in a row while she's checking mail, reading our blog, folding laundry and stuff like that.
We like the ones with Jerry Orbach because he always has something funny to say after something bad happens. Dad calls those lines "Lennyisms." Mom says he's not in any of the new ones. We'll have to be happy with Jesse L. Green. We like him, too. So tonight we'll be quiet, let mom watch TV and let dad watch the Cardinals game on his computer. But tomorrow........

Can we go ride?

We had some time today to check some email. We found a note from our old friend, Amanda Anthony, that made us really happy. It had a story on a car shaped like a wiener. Wow....granted, it looked like it was in trouble, but wow. We like its style, and we thank Amanda for sending it to us. We think all cars ought to be more for us.

Tomorrow, we'll tell you about our friends Molly and Sidney, whose house was invaded by birds.

At least he didn't call it a Wiener Roller

We've just seen something very scary and we felt we should share it.
Our favorite blogger who's not Uncle Brad or Aunt Allison is named Jeff Houck. He's a food freak in Tampa who scares us (in a good way).
His blog, Side Salad, is full of fun stuff that only a sick, crazy person like Jeff can find. But he went too far recently when he started a series about his new toy, a hot dog roller. Bandit has a hard time looking at this entry.
His site is searchable if you must read all about his experiments with the hot dog roller -- Twinkies, Oreos. The horror!

Friends!

We got good news today! We heard of 2 dogs (sorta) like us who are getting their own web page. We think that's great, and we cheer them. As soon as they get going, we'll bring you their link. Precious and Snickers are chihuahuas who have moved in with people we really like. Mike and Rebecca are good wiener-dog lovers who've decided to keep Precious and Snickers since they were in a home with a Labrador and a baby. Now, we're not saying that Labs and babies are bad things, but we believe they are overprioritized in most households.
And that's our low point of view.

They ARE Dog Days, aren't they?

All day, we've been wondering why they call these the Dog Days if they aren't for us.
We heard that people continue to work when it's so hot outside and they are supposed to be honoring us. We think they should come home and feed us treats. We really don't understand why it's not a real holiday.

On another note: We've been reading Uncle Brad's blog, and we don't understand why he'd want to eat a big spider. We know he's out there with Uncle Eric, and we blame him.
And that's our low point of view.

A good weekend

It's Bandit: Look, I can't believe Maggie wrote all that stuff. It's been a nice weekend -- she is right, it's hot. But the bath felt really, really good. See, dad always rubs our ears when we get a bath and it feels nice. I don't really notice the soap and water since he's so sweet to us. Maggie thinks she should be at some doggy spa, I guess, but I've been to one and they aren't as good to us as dad is.

Today's been fine, too. I dug up a bunch of stuff after I got mom's weed fabric pulled out from under the mulch. Took me a while, but I got it pulled way out into the yard so I could dig better. I know mom won't mind too much. She did say a couple things when she saw it, but it was like last week when she saw the great trench I dug when I was trying to follow the big mole that was burrowing under her bed of pink impatiens. I worked very hard, and I think she was impressed by the size of the hole.

A bad weekend

It's me, Maggie, and I'm having a terrible weekend.
Here's the summary:
- It was hot.
- A big thing in the side yard scared me and I ran away.
- I got a bath.
- The backdoor neighbors shot off loud fireworks.
- I had to hide from the lawnmower.

If you want details: Yesterday it was hot outside, and mom and dad weren't outside very much. That means we weren't either. Except that apparently they thought we needed a bath. I don't know why. It was awful. Now I smell terrible -- I'd worked all week to roll in this new smell in the yard. Mom sprays her roses with stuff to keep deer away, and I don't understand it because it smells really, really good like deer pee.

And that begs the question: Why would that keep deer away? Seems to me that would just be saying "Hey deer: We have a really good party over here! You should bring some beer and come on over!"

Anyway, I had that stuff all over me and I smelled really nice for a few days. Mom wouldn't let me in the house much at night, and she wouldn't let me scratch my back on the living room rug. So then Dad gave us a bath. And today, dad mowed the yard and I couldn't go out in the yard because the big bag thing makes too much noise and I just don't know where it's going to go. I've seen big sticks go up in that thing and never come out.

Bandit likes baths. I hate him.

Meet Ernie

From Bandit: OK, so we've talked about Ernie like he's a common cat. He's really not.
He's our friend, and he especially is kind to Maggie -- even when she's being a princess. When she had puppies (we'll get to her bad mothering skills later), she let Maggie's cool puppies slide down his belly when they played. He just purred and rolled them over with his paws.

That's a picture of Ernie at his favorite pastime -- birdwatching. He's really only allowed to watch now. Mom put a bell on him after he ate one of the bluebirds. He doesn't bring as many home for dinner now.

So it finally quit raining

It's Maggie, and I'm grumpy. We finally stepped into the yard today since it's been raining for 2 days. We've just stayed on the stones. Who wants to get their feet wet? I mean it's not really that it's horrible for us to get wet -- Ernie the cat gets wet sometimes when he's too stupid to get out of the rain. But we're just not supposed to.

Last night, Bandit had to run around the side of the house in the rain to go to the front of the house so mom would let us in (she'll always do that in spite of dad's rants).

Anyway, all this rain is making the grass grow really high and we're having to fight through it. Bandit's digging as usual, but I refuse to get all dirty like that. He's a pig. I don't understand why I can't just live in the house by myself? I really prefer sitting on the couch than sitting on the porch. And Bandit just bothers me. I guess that's all I can expect from a dog.