Weekend fun

It's been really hot here lately, so the staff won't let us stay out in the sun for too long every day. We'll go out and play for a while, then they'll make us go in. We'll get to go out and run, then they'll make us go in. While the irregular outings are not too good for getting a lot of good holes going, we have enjoyed being busy. And we haven't been totally disrupted: We found 2 baby snakes just yesterday.
One new thing that's happened is that the staff put furniture on our back porch. We've lost about two-thirds of our territory out there. And, now they sit out there. Frankly, we feel out turf has been invaded a bit, but we have to balance that with the simple fact we get more head rubs out of it. And that, as that snarky blonde woman on TV says: It's a good thing.

Remember to vaccinate; it's important

The following note is from the kind staff of our friends, the Navy racing wieners Skipper, Cricket and Pretzel. They wanted us to pass it along to all our readers, human and canine. The photo is of the wieners friends' foster brother Nicholas, who died this week because his former staffers didn't care enough to have him vaccinated against basic illnesses.

To Whoever Dumped the Red Dachshund with the NY Giants Collar:

This is to whoever dumped a sweet 1-2 year old red male miniature dachshund with the New York Giants collar along I-264. You might want to know he passed away this morning at 9 AM. No, he wasn't hit by a car although he came close several times before someone stopped and rescued him. No, he didn't die of starvation because he went without proper food and water for some time. What killed him was the fact that you sent him out into the world alone without being vaccinated and he contracted Parvo. When Dachshund Rescue of North America got him in he was already sick and we took him to the Vet. He has spent the last 3 days in ICU at a Norfolk Vet fighting to survive but slowly dying from the virus. No expense was spared in the medical effort to save him, but you not spending the money ($18 at the SPCA) to get him vaccinated sentenced him to death. And what is truly sad is that every time someone walked into his room at the Vet he would perk up and look to see who it was. He was looking for you, his family and would sadly put his head back down when it wasn't you. He showed such loyalty to you who didn't care enough to protect and care for him. We with Dachshund Rescue gave him love, medical care and were with him at the end, even though we didn’t know his name and had only known him a few days. Where were you? The people that had raised him from a puppy for the past 1-2 years and who he was so loyal to.

For those of you reading this sad story PLEASE vaccinate your pets. If you can't afford to take you pet to the Vet and keep them current, then don't get a pet until you can. Yes, it is wonderful that you have lots of love to give, but love will not protect an animal from disease. Parvo is a real problem in this area, highly contagious and unvaccinated pets are sitting ducks. We have seen it in our local dog parks and shelters, but it can be picked up anywhere a Parvo infected dog defecates. It can survive up to 9 months on any surface (grass included) even if the feces is no longer there unless sanitized with bleach. All this poor little boy had to do was walked through an area were a Parvo animal had defecated and somehow transfer it to his mouth and he was infected. So unless you keep you pets in a plastic bubble and never take them out, they are at risk for Parvo unless vaccinated.

For those of you re-homing animals: Please make sure the new owner is willing/able to provide Vet care. We at Dachshund Rescue of North America have seen many dachshunds that were re-homed on Craig's List and never taken proper care of. When these dogs got sick these new owners figure it is cheaper to find another puppy/dog than to pay the vet. So make sure your pet goes to a home that will truly care for him/her. And if you can't find a good new home for your pet take them to a shelter, SPCA or call a rescue group, don't just dump them somewhere like with this poor guy.

If you are looking for a dachshund to adopt or need to surrender one please check out DRNA.org.

Sorta good deeds

Staffer Mom always says no good deed goes unpunished. We're not really sure what that means, but we do know that sometimes they are rewarded, too. While we were surfing the Net today, we found this Fierce Wiener Friend who's learned a skill and is taking care of a staffer. We're proud to bring this to you. After all, it's not every dog who learns to push a wheelchair.
(Of course, Maggie says our staff better not even think about it -- when Staffer Mom broke her leg, we couldn't even get on the couch for weeks. We also wouldn't go near her crutches -- she was lethal with those things.)

Under the heading of Dubious Good Deeds, check out the dachshund who plays with fireworks. It's the feature video this week on The Daily Dachshund. And no, we don't approve of what the authors named the video, but the staff tells us it's possible it's accurate. (Apparently, where Staffer Mom works they say truth will get you out of all sorts of trouble.)

Anyway,we've got to figure out how to get the staff to buy us some of those things that shoot fire!!

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Yay! We get attention!

We're wagging again today becaue we just found out we were chosen for the international Dogs With Blogs listings. It's a giant compilation of, well, Dogs With Blogs. They don't choose just every dog blog, and they are really good about featuring faves. We hope we'll be good enough for that one day.

Check out the site and you'll find Dog TV channels, a forum for all of us to chat about our favorite topics (bad cats, flea meds, rolling in poo, dead birds, etc.) and podcasts by other canine friends.

Go fetch!

More fierceness

Today's headlines bring us lots of great wiener news, and we're obliged to share.

First off: Take this one, for instance. It's about a brave wiener with a seriously fierce staffer. The owner and her friends dug for nearly 8 hours to find her dog. You'll just have to read it to find out why you shouldn't be wandering around a gopher-tortoise hole.

And the other news of the day comes from our old neighborhood. It's all about a fierce dachshund named Seabiscuit who warned her owner about mean coyotes in the yard. We were alerted early today about this story from Uncle Mike and Aunt Allison -- Bisquick the cat's regular staffers.

See. We told you wieners and their staffers are tough!

Uncle Brad's annual humiliation ends ...for now

Poor Uncle Brad....lots of folks have had fun at his expense. Several great entries were appended to our post for his birthday and there were outside entries, too. (Scroll down if you don't want to hit the link.)

From Pat the Red Sox fan:
"M-O-N-K-E-Y = 15 Scrabble points.
B-R-A-D = 7 Scrabble points.
Monkey wins and Brad loses. Brad's old. Happy Birthday."

And the winner is:
"Well, okay ...just one squeeze...but only the left one." from our buddy Rhonda!

Oh yeah! We hit 3200 reads on our blog today. We're wagging really hard right now!

A very brave warrior

We just heard about this and we MUST share with you.
Check out this clip....it's a little slow in the beginning, but it got a lot better when the wiener dog showed up.
It's vintage wiener bravery! We're naming this new friend to our Fierce List.

It's Uncle Brad's birthday

It's a special day when we celebrate Uncle Brad's time on Earth with his most flattering photo of the past year.
In the shot, we find him berating a plastic monkey who'd just beaten him in Scrabble.

We're inviting our readers to suggest captions for each photo as a gift. If you're reading this on Facebook, please come over to lowdogworld.blogspot.com to add your cutline.

As Uncle Brad would say: Don't be skeert.

Porches and fresh paint

In our earlier entry, we told you Staffer Mom was planning to paint the back porch. Well, it went OK. She only threatened to give us stripes and paint our tails once. The best part of the day came when Maggie was able to sneak right past Staffer Dad mid-day to leave a few wiener-dog paw prints on the fresh paint.

While Staffer Dad got yelled at for letting her do that, we fared OK. Staffer Mom was planning a second coat of the butter-colored paint, so that took care of the problem when she put that down later in the day.

Now it's another day and she's making us wait one more day to be able to play on our porch. At least we get to walk on it again -- it may be months until Staffer Dad gets to. We're really hoping this never happens again. It's a bother and we deserve our porch back.

Saturday notes

(sing along with us....) IT'S GETTING HOT IN HERE -- we don't wear any clothes: Summer heat is here, and we've been stuck in the Stupid Pen most of the day. Staffer Mom got out the pressure washer again to wash the porch, so we were probably safer there anyway. She did manage to get Green Pillow wet, so we're sitting on a damp nest.

GRIPE SOMEWHERE ELSE: We are slightly annoyed at all the folks who complain about the weather -- specifically the warm temperatures. We have fur, and we don't gripe about it. The humans had a choice. If they don't like it here, they should just move to Alaska or somewhere. If you move to Savannah, you're just asking for heat and humidity.

GOOD AND BAD NEWS: From Aunt Laurie: Yuki the Dalmation has graduated from kindergarten. We're pretty impressed with that. Apparently she got a diploma for her wall (Yuki, not Aunt Laurie) and some special treats. As for the bad news: Cool cat Xerxes, at right, died this week. He'd been with Aunt Laurie since he was found trying to rob a Long Beach ATM back in 1993. Oh wait....Staffer Mom says he wasn't trying to rob an ATM, he was only trying to find an owner with cash. ....Anyway, he was a fierce cat who fought bigger animals and his own diabetes for years. He was a good friend to his staffers. We know he'll be missed here on Earth.

BIG BROWN MISSES A DELIVERY: We watched the Belmont today and we were very sad Big Brown didn't win. However, the shameless pitching for UPS drove us nuts -- we know the delivery service or someone close to it has financial interest in the horse, but it was way too much. Next thing you know, they'll be shipping him in a cardboard box for fun. Is it possible the horse got tired of it, too, and said "I'll deliver when I get good and ready, and dang, it's hot out here. Let's go in and get a beer..."?? Horses are smart that way....

WE'VE BEEN BANNED: We mentioned that Staffer Mom has been washing the porch. She's planning on painting it tomorrow, and we've been banned from playing out there for now. Staffer Dad can't go out there, either, so we aren't taking it personally, but we think he might be. We'll let you know how that goes. We have a bad feeling the new porch paint may get a few foot and paw prints before it's over.

Snakes and rats

Wow. In just 2 days, we've heard 2 heroic dachshund stories, and both involved the word "rat." What are the odds?
And both stories eclipse the time Bandit swallowed a really big live rat to keep it away from Staffer Mom.

First: Aunt Meg told us about her friends whose mini-wiener dog killed a huge rat in their home and sat next to it until they came home. That was heroic!

Second: Uncle Brad passed along a cool story about a gray rat snake, and then another about a dachshund who ate a whole snake, then yakked it up and it crawled away. Very cool.

Uncle Brad also made a cool photo of a dachshund as Indiana Jones in the big snake pit. You should check his blog to see it. Click here.

We're pretty impressed -- and that's not easy. And we do wonder if there's something about Columbus, Ga.,where all the rat and snake stories took place.

Oh well, we just want to tell the wieners involved: Way to go buddies!

Cheer, cheer for beer

With all the cliches wiener dogs generally endure, the German beer one is OK with us. Since we are dogs of German descent, people always assume we love beer.
"Assume" usually means believing something without proper facts in evidence that will eventually make an ASS of U and ME, but in this case, truth is a defense. The photo is of our USS Hawes buddies Skipper, Cricket and Pretzel enjoying a brew at last fall's wiener dog races. You can't see the cup behind their staff's legs, but it's there. There's even an extra one off to the left of the picture.

Generally, the staff won't let us have beer or that type of beverage at all. They say dogs shouldn't have alcohol, and they say it will give us gas. (We think they are more afriad of the latter issue and the former is just an excuse.)

Well, now we've learned there's non-alcoholic beer brewed for us! Read about it at this link. We thank our buddies over at the Daily Dachshund for letting us know about it all.

A perfect career?

The staff just told us something very cool: Aunt Jenn, right, has a job that allows her to spend all day digging up stuff. Sometimes she finds bits of rock and sometimes she finds dead things....AND she gets paid for it!
We're very good at that type of work, and if we had to have careers outside of being landscape artists, guard dogs and stress busters, that might work for us.
It does alarm us, though, that Staffer Mom told us about Aunt Jenn's new job and then made several remarks insinuating we should earn our keep.
We are heartened, though, because if we could get that kind of paying job, it might be just perfect!

Nap time

From Bandit: We are firm believers that naps are often very good things, especially after a big mole-trail excavation or a run in sand. Naps keep you happy, healthy and help you renew for the rest of the day. Aunt Allison recommends taking time out in her blog, and she's usually right about things like that.

As careful readers know, we went to the beach last weekend and played very hard. It was warm, and we took lots of walks every day. The pavement was hot, but we liked the soft sand. We got tired, but a great nap on green pillow was all we needed.
Here's a picture of Maggie's great nap after a long walk.

Let's all take a few minutes to chill out and just go mellow. It's good for you.