Stupid humans, Ch. 1

So this guy in Russia thinks it would be fun to take his dachshund scuba diving. While we appreciate his wanting to spend more time with his canine, this was a bit too much for us when we heard the poor thing squeaking underwater.
Please.
Here's a video.
We think they probably quit filming after the dog came out of the water and tore the owner a new orafice. And we don't mean a hole in his wetsuit, either. 
Bet that made him squeak.

We saw the Wienermobile!

It's true! The staff took us on a great field trip this weekend!
We saw the official Wienermobile, or at least one of them.

While we weren't allowed to go inside, we did get to stand on the steps and we had our pictures taken with it.  Here are a few of the pics -- the best ones have the staff in them because they were helpful and lifted us up so we could see better. Staffer Dad also let Bandit sniff the back end of the giant hotdog, and Maggie got to look in through the windshield since she was told in no uncertain terms she couldn't drive.

The hotdog was parked in front of a Kroger, and of course we couldn't go in there either. Lots of people were hanging around, and we expected to come out of the deal with at least a munchie or two. But, it was a pretty clean parking lot. The Wienermobile's staff was really, really nice, and one of them even said she was from Staffer Dad's home state, Missouri. If you want to see more about the stop in Savannah, here's a video of the inside and other pics from savannahnow.com.

All good field trips are educational. Here's what we learned:

• There are eight total rolling wieners and six on the road. The other two are for back-up. You can learn more about the fleet here.
• The big wiener sits on a Chevy truck chasis. We wondered about that since it seemed roomy and nice.
• There is no chili or mustard or relish on it. Just a dog and a bun. The seats are mustard-colored, though.
• The way-cool celebrity meat vehicles winter in Wisconsin and head all over in the summer driven by students who call themselves "hotdoggers." They keep a blog, too.
• Wiener dogs who eat hot dogs are not cannibals. Hot dogs aren't made from wiener dogs. We were very glad to have that fact reinforced. The Kitten told us they were. But, thankfully, we learned that's not true. Wonder why he told us that?

Field trips are fun!

New blog friends

Hey all! Check out The Long and Short of it All for more fun wiener news. This is a great blog by Joey and Maggie -- no kin to our Maggie. They collect all sorts of dachshund news and pop culture info about dogs like us. And of course, that's important stuff to know.

We need a nap!

And boy did we earn it!
Today was the monthly gathering for the dachshund club in Forsyth Park, and the weather was wiener-dog perfect!
Lots of friends and their staffers showed up. We saw chocolate dapples, chocolate-and-cream dapples, a pretty longhair, a 12-week-old puppy, and many more. We met a young, happy friend in need of adoption. His name is Ethan, and he's a small black-and-tan like us. If you'd like to adopt him, or someone like him, click here.
We played so much that we ended up sleeping all the way home in the limo.
Here's a link to the pictures of the old and new friends we saw today.

Do we put out plastic people?

Mom has this fascination with fake yard critters. She's always had some sort of thing in the backyard: a plastic pig rooting in the garden, a smiling metal sun standing near the tall flowers, a steel-rotor-body cat birdfeeder luring birds to lunch.

At the beach, she always insists on having at least 2 pink plastic flamingos guarding the yard from hurricanes. (They haven't worked very well at all.)

We're a little less amused at her later acquisitions. She now has 3 dachshunds made of scrap metal. She calls them "yard art." We have other names for them and sometimes we pee on them.

And then there's the last thing: a yard wiener with green moss all over it. Mom says it's a "topiary." And most disturbing, it's the same size at Maggie. We've named it Mo for "mom has one mo dachshund." We wish she'd stick to flamingos, but you can vote on what she'll do next in our new poll.

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.

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.

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.

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.