Digging, sniffing and a bath all in a weekend

The title of today's blog pretty much sums up our weekend. We did a lot of snoozing, too, but felt more strongly about the other three. Staffer Dad took Bandit on a ride to the gas station, so that was big, too.
We spent the rest of the afternoon checking in on the Wiener Nationals -- lots of prep and great dogs were running. Here's the link to one of our favorite blogs where they've posted lots of reports, photos and videos.
Don't forget: The Savannah Wiener Dog Races are coming soon!
Happy Wiener Weekend!

We know, we know!

It's been awhile. Really a month and a half or so, it just feels like a long time. (Maggie, right, slept through it all.)

There's been a lot of digging, mud and raccoon break-ins. The staff's been keeping us busy since they took vacation, and the raccoon(s) out back are still breaking into the porch on random nights to eat our dog food. It's annoying, but we do get to help clean up by snarfing up a lot of the spilled food.

Magic bush

Today Staffer Dad found out one of our favorite hiding places.
It's a big bush in the backdoor neighbor's yard. It has lots of great smells around it, soft dirt to dig underneath and, best of all, we can't hear Staffer Dad yelling at us to come home.
Staffer Mom says it's probably a Magic Bush with something called a Cone of Silence over it. She thought that was funny, but we think she may be right.
All we know is we really like that bush, and even if we hear him calling, we're not coming back until we a) hear the dinner plates going down or b) we feel like it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We've had a great day!
The staff was home with us all day (except they did leave for breakfast -- where do they go? can't they just eat out of their bowls like we do?) and we got to go outside a lot and we had a T-bone steak bone each. Maggie left hers outside, and Bandit buried his. We'll pull them out later when they've marinated well in the dirt. We hope they are still there when we go back out -- somehow the staff seems to always confiscate them. (They say it's because they care. Sure seems mean to us.)

We also got to help the staff clean up the back room where they pile boxes and stuff they can't figure out what to do with or stuff they just don't want to fool with. They say a lot of people have one of those rooms, but we don't understand why. Humans seem to have a lot of stuff.

And that brings us to a couple other things: Since it's Thanksgiving, we wanted to say we're thankful for our blankies, staffers, grandma, our aunts, uncles and buddies and our blog friends.
Thank you all!

Cold weather is here, and so are the deer

This week, it turned winter around here. Staffer Mom pulled out the blankets for the staff, and we got an extra blankie, too. All that thoughtfulness is nice, but we still had to go outside to do our business -- and it was below freezing.
Staffer Dad insists we go out and walk and stuff. Bandit doesn't like it, but he remembers when it was worse. When he lived in Kentucky and had to go out in the snow and dig a hole. He thought it was pretty neat since his poo would steam when it was really cold. He keeps trying to make it happen here in this yard. Maggie just keeps crawling up on Staffer Dad to snuggle.

The other big thing this week is that we have a pet deer. Staffer Mom doesn't like him at all because he ate all her new pansy plants, but we think he's cool. The staff couldn't figure out why we won't chase him out of the yard or even acknowledge his presence. It's probably a good thing they don't realize how long he's been living here. We see and smell him all the time. We roll in his pee a lot. We think he's now peeing exclusively in our yard just because we appreciate it so much.
He was here all weekend, and that's why Staffer Dad made us take a bath today.
Anyway, we like the deer and we're going to try to keep him.
Staffer Mom's not going to be happy about this. She'll have to deal: We've named it Willis.

We are back (OK, out of timeout)

First of all: We're sorry.
Second: We are making a public apology to Ernie. We didn't really mean to knock over the cat food tower (right), and we're pretty sure we weren't the ones who put cat food all over the den and dining room. If we didn't, it was truly an accident because we truly believe in immediately picking up any food we drop. (Sometimes we even fight to see who gets to snarf it up!)
Here's what happened: Staffer Mom filled up the self-feeding cat food tower, and we got a little excited and at some point it went flying across the kitchen and food went everywhere.
We admit mouthing off a bit about Ernie even needing a self-feeder and if she didn't want us to taste it it shouldn't be on the floor...yadda, yadda.
Basically, she told us we couldn't blog again until she quit finding food in the rugs and floorboards across three different rooms and until we figured out how to share our toys and when we quit digging up her new bed of pansies.
And then she wouldn't let us try to help by sniffing out the strewn food -- one of our more refined skills, she had to pull out the sucking vacuum cleaner thing and it never works right....anyway...more than you wanted to know.

But we're back.
Staffer Mom says that the first day of Tar Heel basketball season is special one and all household shenanigans are forgiven for another year. We are really glad every year when that day comes.
Go Heels!

We're SO aggressive

We've had a chance to do a little extra reading this week, and we're a little perturbed at one of the recent stories we found. It says dachshunds are rated as "most aggressive" among dog breeds. We don't like to criticize science, especially since it brought us a lot of cool things like Kong toys, flea killer and Science Diet food. But, this research has to be wrong. Here's another look at the study and how it works. It's got more context, something Staffer Mom says is important. We just think it explains the findings a bit more fairly.
About the only thing we're aggressive about is digging holes and relaxation.

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!

Summer bath time

First of all: We're sorry for the delay in posting this week. We've been pretty busy since a family of moles took up in the backyard near Staffer Mom's impatiens bed. We've had to get to them, and it's been tough. She's put planted pots around on the mole trails, and it's take a few days to knock them over and get in the holes. We finished rooting through it today.
We got really dirty, which brings us to today's topic.
Bath time is not fun, unless it's really warm outside. And today was warm. So we'd like to show you what a proper bath should be like.

Staffer Mom helped us do 2 videos to show proper a bath (administered to Bandit by Staffer Dad) and how to dry, again by Bandit.
He prefers the shake, waggle and roll method, followed by a hard run for a final air dry. Maggie prefers a gentle towel dry, as you can see in the photo.

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.

Beautiful day to dig

Wow. Spring's here, and we've had a great day. Bandit dug out a 20-foot mole trail, and Maggie found smells from all kinds of small rodents around Staffer Mom's daylilies. Tomorrow, we're targeting the bushes behind the garden. There should be some real action over there under the mulch. We also hope to go to the park and see our buddies in the dachshund club. What a great weekend!

Dead squirrel day!

Today started out great! We ran outside on our first run this morning and there it was! Bandit found a dead squirrel over in the corner of the yard! But, we had to eat our breakfast first, so he left it over there and as soon as we were finished he brought it back toward the house where it would be safe.
We really didn't think anything would happen to it until Staffer Dad came out of the house and insisted we not bring it in. Bandit was really smart. He took it to the garden and buried it. He'd already dug a hole, so he just dropped it in and then worked really hard to get it covered up before Dad could get over there. We were really lucky, too, because the staffers were dressed to go to their day jobs and they weren't going to dig it up right then.

So all day it's been there, marinating in Staffer Mom's good garden soil with fresh compost. We cannot wait to get back out there and pull it out. This is going to be the best!!

A Christmas Carol from us

We're singing our new special song for you...sorry there's no audio. You'll just have to pretend it's to the tune of "Jingle Bells." Here goes:

Dashing through the yard
On a soft-dirt rainy day.
Through the flowers we go
Snorting all the way.

Bells on Ernie ring
Scaring birds away.
What fun it is
To dig and trail
The varmints every day.

In the yard,
Through the mulch,
Under piles of leaves,
Oh what fun it is to be
A wiener hound indeed!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Maggie&Bandit

Busy wiener weekend

There's been a lot going on this weekend. It's been raining and really warm and now it's gotten dark and really cold. We took a run through the neighborhood while Dad was grilling the staff dinner. I'm not sure he was pleased about that.

All in all, it's been a very successful two days. We've dug lots of holes -- one mole trail went from under mom's potted plants near the porch all the way across the yard, under the blooming pentas to the soft spot near the bird bath. We dug out most of it, but moles were already gone. It was easy since we had some rain. Mom wasn't real thrilled that we had to go under the pentas, and Bandit (at right with a snoot-full of dirt) nearly got beaned when the potted coleus fell over. But, it was a good exercise.
We figure if we dig up enough trails, the moles will take the hint and go. Of course, then we'll have to dig up something else!

And a couple notes:
- A shout-out to Uncle Brad. We see your Dolphins finally won a game! Yay!
- As of today, 1241 people have looked at something on Lowdogworld. Wow! Thanks for stopping by!

Oh happy day!

It's been raining some and now the ground is squishy soft!
Mom and Dad are home, so we can dig outside! Wooohoooo!

Is it fall yet?

From Bandit: Wow. All the wildlife is moving around. There are tons of great smells out in the yard today. I've followed one good one all the way across the yard and over to the neighbor's house. I haven't smelled it in a while, and I'd really like to see the animal that brought it. The yard moles are digging again, and I've made a pretty good trench near mom's pink impatiens again. She'll understand, because she doesn't like moles either. (I tried to nose the plants back in the hole, but I think she'll have to do it.)
And Ernie brought us another dead baby snake today, too. He's found a bunch. Don't think mom's too happy about that, but she figures dead baby snakes are better than live adult ones. He's a good hunter.
Is mom frying bacon?

Holiday surprise

So Labor Day came and went -- we like holidays because mom and dad are home more with us. This year, though, they decided to make sure they wouldn't have to chase us so much. And granted, we did find a way-cool hole in the back fence where we could go visit the neighbor's cat any time we wanted.

Here's how they presented the new thing: "You can be out in the yard more, no matter what we're doing."
That sounded ok, and then we saw it. It unfolded from a plastic block into something that looks more like a 6-sided playpen for urchins.

After a day, this is how we feel:
Bandit: It's not so bad, but I can't dig quite as freely. Wanna rub my ears?
Maggie (right): I hate it. I hate mom. I hate dad. I hate the yard. I hate Ernie for sitting in the yard chair and watching me. I hate you all.

Rainy days=Soft dirt

Bandit here: Wow. We've had a lot of rain. And that's good since the drought made the ground hard, and I had trouble pulling out the tree roots I'd been working on. But today, I managed to pull up a few roots. I'd started working on the crape myrtle when it started pouring again. I'll let you know how I do tomorrow. It should be positively muddy!

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?

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.