We earn our keep and we're scary, too

Lately, when we irritate the staff by asking questions like "When do WE get a vacation?" or "Why do we have to eat in the laundry room?", it's been suggested that we might should consider getting jobs. As ludicrous as that notion may be, we know we'd be successful at many careers.
For instance, a cemetery owner in Fremont, Nebraska, uses a dachshund to clean moles out of the cemetery. You can read about it here.

We think that's absolutely something we could do. Heck, we do it now and we should ask the staff to pay us for that!

Also, Foster's and Henry's mom sent us a story recently suggesting dachshunds should be used more in comic books as the scary, threatening beasts instead of gorillas or dinosaurs. It's true. There's no way we wouldn't win those matches. No way.

Here are some quotes from an essay she sent over:
- "While a ticked gorilla is still throwing leaves around and having an ostentatious hissy fit, the wily dachshund will have already tripped you, crushed your trachea, and, as you suffocate, be sitting on your chest chewing on your ribs while farting in your face. And wagging his tail."
- "How many gorillas do you know in real life interested in world domination? Zero. Again, gorillas pale as a threat when compared to dachshunds, all of which are bent on world domination. Charles Heston would've lasted about 3 seconds on the Planet of the Dachshunds...."

And we've been forced by the staff (and Uncle Brad and Aunt Jenn) to sit through all five Planet of the Apes movies in one day, so we know this is true. If we were in charge, ol' Charlton sure wouldn't be doing all those NRA commercials, and he'd never say this because we don't allow people to talk to us that way. He'd be a believer in dachshund justice and working for DRNA (Dachshund Rescue of North America).

So, the staff should pay us for our star potential, too. We'd compromise for getting to eat dinner in the kitchen...near the cat food bowl.
Especially if it's full.

Dog Days

Well, as you may have expected, we're back at home and the staffers have returned to their old routine: Get up, take us out, eat breakfast, make us watch Staffer Mom read the paper, send us to our playroom. That's a normal morning. Evenings have been better because it's been raining some and it's really hot outside, so the staff has to play with us inside. And when that happens, we get to watch lots of baseball with Staffer Dad. We also get to learn new words when the Cardinals blow a 7-run lead late in the game.
We realize it's not a glamorous life, but for us, it's fun. We guess the Dog Days of Summer were really meant for us.

Storms and other noises

It's been an interesting week for us. Lots of sun, sand and some storms. The best thing so far has been right near the house. Maggie discovered a dove's nest right under the deck, and we haven't had any luck digging through to it. We run out every chance we get to try, but we haven't been able to get to it. The staff says we should leave it alone, but we really think we could make friends with the dove family if we could just get to it.

Otherwise, we've had lots of fireworks around the house, and while the staff says they are no big deal and kinda pretty, we have our doubts. If they are harmless, why do they make all that noise? And then this morning, we had lightning and thunder and really loud rain. It woke us up early and we realized quickly the staffers weren't going to take us out to walk in all that.
While Maggie resorted to hurling her body at the door, Bandit decided to woof now and then. We really weren't sure what to do, and neither tactic worked well. Staffer Dad didn't even come to see us with the leashes until it quit raining. We thought we were going to burst. Later today, it stormed again -- and that was better than all that noise from jet planes flying over all week. Even those big things couldn't fight Mother Nature. They didn't fly at all today, but we're guessing a lot of other things did since the wind was really howling.
This video is something that happened on the beach nearby while the staff was away today. Our buddies from Alabama saw it happen!

Science appreciates us, too

Wow. In today's Science Daily, we found an article about a stubborn gene that may help stop invasive breast cancer. The gene's name: Dachshund or DACH1. We think that's terrific, and it's named appropriately. First of all, we are stubborn, and stopping breast cancer requires this gene to be on patrol. It also has the ability to herd other genes gone wild and make them behave normally. Obviously, science take our breed seriously, too. Maybe being aggressive about some things isn't so bad after all.

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.

Walks, snacks and naps

We really enjoy vacations -- it means the staffers are with us all the time, and they generally do what we want. When we want out, we go out. When we want to nap, we can scramble up on the sofa and take one. When we want to eat, we can usually sniff around on the floor between meals and get some snacks. They invite lots of friends over and every one seems to drop crumbs and laugh a lot. Really, it's our job to make sure things are cleaned up, so this works out well.
We take walks regularly, and sometimes we see other dogs and sometimes we see people riding things with big wheels. We don't like those. But we do like the walks, so we'll deal with the bike things. Maggie thinks she can probably take one down with a well-placed fang in the back tire.

W is for Wimbledon, Williams

From Maggie: Last year, I was able to give you regular observations about Wimbledon fashion, but this year the staff changed how the TV remote works and we've had trouble figuring it out. So sadly, our fashion updates had to be sacrificed. (We'll try to do better for the U.S. Open -- there are more fashion risks there anyway, and I'm more than willing to point them out.)
Today, we're in luck because the staff decided to let us watch the finals. And I'm pleasantly surprised to find my fashion fave, Venus Williams, playing sister Serena. Venus is always my pick for best-dressed anyway, but today, even in the respectful Wimbledon white, she's a goddess in her plain halter dress. Her sister, on the other hand, looks less like a go-go dancer today and finally got rid of the less-than-classy catsuits (for now). Today, she's chosen a low-key dress with a graceful plain top. Her earrings, however, look like beaded shower curtain rings. Venus would never make that mistake.

Edible hot dogs

Here's a look at more hot-dog-eating, at a professional level.
See this one. It's the only kind we sanction.

Hot dogs and bad snacks

This week, we've been very busy. We've been watching the staff pack for a trip, and then yesterday, we left on the road trip. It was fun, but we were so tired from watching them pack, we slept a lot. This morning we've been catching up on news and Wimbledon (more on that later) and listening to the staff and Uncle Brad and Aunt Jenn yammer incessantly about stupid stuff.
However, Uncle Brad has gleefully informed us that the original hot dog -- the kind you eat -- was first called a "hot dachshund" or "dachshund sandwich". We weren't all that amused. Anyway, then we learned about Vienna Sausages, which are really small hot-dog-looking meat things that come packed in a can. (Staffer Mom says some people call them "Vie-A-Ner Sausages.") Whatever. They do sound like something we'd eat. Oh yeah, and speaking of small stubby things we might eat:
Did you hear about the dachshund who gnawed off his owner's big toe?
Ok, it's not funny, but we can sort of understand how this can happen. Staffer Dad dropped hamburger on his pants one time and we went for that. We don't think this situation is remotely the same, but here's the story if you want to read it. It turned out pretty badly for the wiener dog involved, and we do not recommend this behavior. It's a tough lesson to learn, but don't eat stuff you're not supposed to.

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!!

">

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.

Endless food; gas for the road

From Maggie: Ernie, our cat friend, has a food dish the staff calls a "self-feeder."
When he wants to eat, he can walk up to it and it always has food. A small chute in the back provides an endless supply, it seems. We've always been jealous of that, but we never could get close to it because the staff won't let us eat cat food. Patience does pay, however, and yesterday was payday.

By the time the staff arrived home from work, we'd discovered that the supply is not endless. In fact, once it's empty, it's gone. When we got access to the bowl early in the day, we decided to learn its secret. We decided the way to do this was for Bandit to just keep eating until it was clear how it worked. We still don't know how it works, but we do know the staff wouldn't give us any dinner and they weren't the least impressed with our research.

What else we didn't know was that we were supposed to leave on a road trip last night -- they tend to not tell us this stuff because Staffer Mom says I get "overly excited." Whatever.
They piled us into the limo and took us on a 8-hour trip to one of our fave places -- the beach.
We felt like sleeping on the trip, because our tummies were full. Bandit was complaining of some tummy upset. He even turned down the opportunity to rummage through Staffer Mom's purse when she left it sitting open.

We didn't get much sleep though. Let's just say that while we were very full and calm, our tummies weren't.
Staffer Mom kept opening the back windows and yelling at us. At one point she called us some kind of "blossom" and cursed at us.

It's all the staff's fault. If we hadn't had access to the cat food, we wouldn't have had upset tummies and we wouldn't have tried to figure out how much food was in the bowl. What were we supposed to do? Just look at it?

Gotta run. Bandit needs to go outside again, and I want to watch.

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.

Weekend at Grandma's

We took a really long road trip this weekend and ended up at Grandma's! She built a whole new room on her house, and we think she did it for us. We love the new room! If we stayed with her, we could live out there and stay off of her good rugs. She has a big yard and we dug there with some success. She says the bigger holes are snake holes or vole holes, but we think she should let us dig and find out.

Anyway, it was a good trip and we think the limo smells better now than ever. We spent a lot of time there, and it finally smells like us. It's about time.

Maggie meets Gnate

The staff took us out to the Humane Society Doggie Carnival on Sunday. We saw lots and lots of our kind and many other members of the canine clan, too. We had a good time, but we found it to be really crowded and humans kept getting caught in leashes all over the place. We don't understand why they can't seem to figure our how to walk with them. They make us do it.

Anyway, we saw a few celebrities, including Gnate the Gnat from the Savannah Sand Gnats. They're having a dog's night out at the ball park soon, and we've decided we want to go. It's not free beer night, but the staff will probably want to go anyway. We'd like to invite all dachshunds to join us at Grayson Stadium. We'll post details soon!

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.