Pressure-washer weekend

Staffer Mom has a new toy. She got a pressure washer to knock the mildew off the house, and she's found she can do that and more. In fact, we think she likes it a little too much. For instance, she can shoot our food dishes 50 feet across the yard, and she can knock pine cones off the roof with a stream of water. We don't even want to think what it might do to us if she decides we need a bath. We won't even be able to hide under the patio chairs.

However, we can think of a few things we'd like to use it for:
1) Shoot squirrels our of the trees. They're just plain fussy this time of year.
2) Knock the dog treat can off the backyard table. If it hits the ground, it's ours.
3) Launch the side-neighbor Jane's chihuahua across the rose bushes and back into its own yard. Need we say more?

If she'll quit threatening us with it, we're going to like this thing.

Movie night

Tonight the staff let us watch the last part of the classic "Eight Below." It's about great sled dogs who took a human across the frozen north and then were abandoned. Granted, the human finally got back to them but it took them long enough and one of them died. We felt really bad for the girl dog who almost didn't make it. The other dogs tried to feed her birds they caught, but she just doesn't eat bird, we guess.

Anyway, all they really needed was Lassie. Let's face it. She never would've let the situation get to that point. First of all, there's no way she would allow herself and her close friends to be chained to a sled to pull some human. And, she'd never go that far north. Snow on those paws? We don't think so.

Update on quiz

We just found out the quiz link wasn't working properly. Sorry.

Try this one and let us know what kind of dog you are. That is, unless you already are one.

Dog wannabes

Ok, so we always wonder about humans and what kind of dogs some of them would make. We have a pretty low opinion of most of them, but we still want to know.
We found this quiz on Dogster -- a fairly decent web site to help humans learn more about our kind.

The quiz helps humans try to figure out what dog breed they'd be. Ask your staffers to take this quiz and find out. We're not sure it's absolutely accurate, but what the heck? Our staffers took it today. Staffer Mom is a Labrador Retriever and Staffer Dad is a Border Collie. Uncle Brad says he's a Jack Russell. We have no idea what it would take to be a dachshund, and we can't even think of anyone who could live up to those standards. If you know of someone, let us know. We'd like to meet them.

Pretenders & the kennel

The staff abandoned us this weekend. They said they were going on a "road trip" and kept singing "Boogie-Oogie-Oogie" and said something about Alabama. They said they were going to some place named Boogie and Aunt Jenn and Uncle Brad would be there, as well as Aunt Meg and Uncle Eric.

All we know is that we ended up in the kennel. They tried to tell us it was a spa and we'd get manicures and pedicures, but it was just a kennel with toe nail clippers and no TV.

And it was bad enough that we had to share the weekend with two truly obnoxious Golden Retrievers named -- yes, it's true: Maggie and Bandit. Those two were too perky to live. All weekend they sucked up to the kennel staff and wanted to play ball and play in the water pool and chase a stuffed duck. Showoffs.

They tried to send those two hyper furballs out with Staffer Dad when he came to pick us up! The kennel staff actually took those 2 out there to him and left us just sitting there in the pen! We were pretty horrified.

Thankfully, Staffer Dad noticed they weren't us and sent them back to their pens (the dogs, not the kennel staff -- however we think it might have been better the other way).

So now we're home and the Staff still hasn't apologized. Maggie's already targeted a couple flower pots to knock over and Bandit's real sure he's going to pee on something good early tomorrow.

Yard work for us

The staff worked in the yard all weekend. They put new flowers in the ground in a couple places and pine straw mulch everywhere. It's taken us all week on morning and evening play time to clear off some of it.
We added a few holes around the new flowers until Staffer Mom made it rain on us. Every time she gets out that green hose and we get near the flowers, it starts raining. We're not sure how that works, but it always happens.
We really need to move more of that mulch -- that's where the frogs and moles hide, and it's just more work for us when we are looking for them.

Maggie's quest

Today, we found a web site that shows you what Maggie thinks she's going to look like after her diet is over. Apparently, you can get this design on a T-shirt, and Bandit thinks the staff should buy one for each of them to remind Maggie about how little she gets to eat.
(If you don't have a dachshund, you can find skeledogs of any kind at skeledogs.com.)

Also, the vet has recommended the staff give Maggie small carrots as snackie treats. Aunt Lesley says her dog will eat them IF they've been dipped in beef bouillon. Well, heck, we can think of lots of things that will taste better dipped in beef stock!

Anyone got a better low-cal idea?

Life's a Maggie

From Bandit: It's been a long weekend, not because we haven't had fun, but because Maggie's on a diet. The result of all this is that Miss Priss has gone from being a plain ol' brat to something that's way beyond surly.
She growls when we sit on our pillow. She's grumpy when we go outside. In the house, she continuously sweeps through the kitchen looking for food. At night, for snackie treat time, she only gets a half-piece now. Granted, as Staffer Dad says, "she doesn't know half from Shinola." But she's pretty certain she's been shorted.
Well, all I know is that she's been taking up too much space and now she's tough to deal with. I think I'll ask to go to work with Staffer Mom tomorrow.

Welcome Yuki!

Yuki the Spotted Dog has joined the blog world. Careful readers may remember Yuki helped her valet, Aunt Laurie, win the Bandit Challenge during the NCAA basketball tournament. And Yuki did it with a broken paw...from jumping up and down stairs. We see that as an admirable way to break something, so we feel bad about her current stint in "time out."
The staff keeps saying to quit calling Yuki a Spotted Dog, but that's what she is. They call her a Dalmation or "fire truck dog" or "beer truck dog." But to us, she's got polka dots and we think that's fun. (We have a spotted dachshund on the wall in our house, so dots are very cool.)

Welcome Yuki!
(We've linked her blog on our blog faves on the left of our page. It's a fine collection, and you should check each one out.)

Cats get special privileges

We've been reading Fierce Bebe's blog lately -- you might recognize Fierce Bebe from the smart comments she makes on our blogs. (She seems to like us.)
Today, she's written about her cat Scruffy, who seems to be in charge at her house. We understand that he gets to sit on the coffee table, and pretty much anywhere he wants. It's that way at our house, too. Ernie gets away with everything. He sleeps in our bed, on our pillows -- sometimes with us, in the bed with the staff and can come and go as he pleases. We aren't allowed near his food bowl at all.
Bebe thinks cats share their evil ideas. Maybe they do. She says she might use aluminum foil to keep him from getting ideas. We've heard that if you wrap a cat completely in plastic wrap, they'll quit bothering you. Not sure why that might work, but we hear it does. Maybe a plastic grocery bag would do. We're not sure if you should leave their head sticking out or not.
(We wouldn't do it to Ernie, but there's a cat down the street who's just asking for it.)

Sunday in the park

From Bandit: Went to the park for the monthly Savannah Dachshund Club meet. I got to ride in the car with the top down and stick my nose right up in the air. And Mom took me to a drive-through at Sonic when it was over! She made me wear a seatbelt, but since she was wearing one, too, I guess it's ok.

I met some old friends and new ones today. Longfellow was there, and I got to meet Vinny Pie and Percy and Schlitz. There were two other long-haired dachshunds, but they didn't stay long enough for a good sniff. Oh well. Maybe next month.

Here is a link to pictures from the park and my new friends.

Maggie didn't get to come, so the day was complete!

Bandit Challenge ends abruptly!

With the fall of UCLA and UNC last night, the Challenge ended a bit early since no one picked Memphis or Kansas to win. So Aunt Laurie wins it all!

And that's good, because she's had a rough week. She's a staffer for Yuki, a great Dalmatian puppy...Laurie works at UCLA, yet is a Tar Heel. Yuki, right, was jumping up and down stairs early in the week and broke her toe, and now has to spend 2 weeks in confinement. (Yuki tells us she's eaten all of her toys and is now eyeing her staffer's new leather pumps.)

As for the results, Laurie's real surge came in the early rounds where it was smart to pick underdogs -- we gave more points to lower seeds since, as lowdogs, we're committed to the underdog. We're not sure if Yuki helped with Laurie's picks or not, so we'll give the cheers for both of them.

And the rest of you: Staffer Dad and Buddy Gale finished just behind Aunt Laurie. Uncle Brad pulled himself out of the cellar but still managed to finish tied with Sturm, who picked her winners based on which coach was hotter and if she'd look good wearing the team colors.

Career sports person Troy and one-time sports person Amanda did ok. They were probably one decent pick away from doing really, really well. Staffer Mom came out looking really bad, in general. (and she's pretty bummed out about the Heels....we gave her an extra lick this morning.)

We do give major kudos to FosterMom Ellen for making picks so great she managed to finish mid-pack even though she picked Georgia to go all the way. And it's the first time ever Bandit's finished bottom of the pack in any bracket pool, which says we've finally found some humans who seem to know what they are doing.

Overall Standings
Group Standings
Rank Team Name Score Correct Best Score Best Correct Champion
1 Aunt Laurie/Yuki's mom 222 39 222 39 North Carolina (138)
2 Staffer Dad 220 43 220 43 UCLA (143)
3 Buddy Gale 211 43 211 43 North Carolina (151)
4 FosterMom Ellen 209 41 209 41 Georgia (137)
5 Amanda Anthony 208 39 208 39 Louisville (120)
6 Troy Johnson 193 39 193 39 North Carolina (154)
7 Staffer Mom 185 39 185 39 North Carolina (159)
8 Uncle Brad 172 35 172 35 North Carolina (154)
8 Jennifer Sturm 172 34 172 34 Drake (159)
10 Bandit 158 31 158 31 UCLA (148)

Thanks to all who made the first lowdogworld.blogspot.com Bandit Challenge so much fun!
Let's play again next year!!!

Aunt Laurie moves to first

We're taking this opportunity between Final Four games to cheer for Aunt Laurie -- her bracket sped to the top of the heap as Memphis beat UCLA. We know she picked Memphis because she has family there, and that's OK. After all, Bandit's strategy of picking the toughest mascot in each matchup really didn't work too well.

We also know that Uncle Brad must be breathing better now that he's climbed over Bandit and up a couple slots from the cellar. Staffer Dad and our buddy Gale took a hit in the last game, but we think Gale still has a shot. His refusal to pick Kansas makes us wag.

A note before the next game starts: Billy Packer must be stopped -- click here to sign the petition. He's really annoying, and we'd like to dig a big hole and put him in it. Staffer Dad just told us Billy's not in the coaches hall of fame, and we just couldn't believe it. We thought he must be since he constantly second-guesses the coaches and reads players' minds through the entire game.

Now that Maggie's over being catty, we're going to jump on the pillow and watch the Heels and Jayhawks.

Saturday snorts

It's a busy day with lots going on for us. Staffer Dad took us on a short ride. Then, we played outside until the rains came, and then we got a bath. Generally, that's bad but Staffer Dad made sure we had our flea stuff for the month and we already feel better. We're glad about that. Maggie's had a case of the scoots, and now it's almost gone. Everyone's glad about that.

Tonight, we're getting geared up for the Final Four. Our beloved Tar Heels play Kansas, and it's going to be a wild ride. As you all may know, Bandit picked UCLA to win in the Bandit Challenge, but deep down he's rooting for the Heels. As for Maggie, she thinks Tyler Hansbrough is the fiercest ever.

And don't forget: Tomorrow's the monthly Savannah Dachshund Meet at 2 p.m. at Forsyth Park. It's supposed to be a great day! We'll see you there!

The Gate

From Bandit: For years, we've been allowed to run around the house in limited areas. Places we can't go are blocked by what the staff call a "baby gate." While we're insulted by the name, we know they really mean "Maggie Gate." Those wood and plastic blocks were the bane of our in-house existence.

A few months ago, Maggie managed to chew through the plastic lattice on it and then started running through it with no regard for where she was really supposed to be. It would've been OK but then she got into the cat food a couple times and Ernie complained. So the staff went and bought new gates.

Then the gates started appearing on the porch, across the bedroom door and in front of the kitchen. Not fair. So this weekend, Maggie figured out how to knock them down. She just wedges her nose under the corner and lifts it up. It's been a while since I've complimented Maggie on anything, but this new skill she's acquired is terrific. She's like the 'raptors in "Jurassic Park." It's no wonder that's her favorite movie. She just tests the gates until she finds a weak point, sticks her nose up under it and lifts.

As you might imagine, the staffers are not thrilled about this at all, especially since we manage to sneak out and run around the house pretty often. And Ernie is really hot that his food bowl seems to be empty all the time. Too bad.