The spirit of giving

Today, one of our Yahoo alerts -- yes, we can do that -- brought us this great story of a man who got a new recliner with the help of his dachshund.

We think this is good for every dachshund to know, because it's important to know you can have fun on good projects to help your staffers. For instance, if your Staffer Dad says something like "Wow, I wish I had a new pair of dress shoes....", that's your hint to go do a bit of surgery on them to make them absolutely unwearable. That way he'll get new shoes, and you'll have helped in a way you enjoy.

We helped Staffer Mom out several times with some shoes and a couple pairs of socks we felt she really needed to get rid of. Maggie got a tooth hung in the strappy sandals, but it all worked out OK. We were banished from the closet for a week or so, but there wasn't much else to do there anyway.
At this time of giving, think of it as more than an average chore. You're helping out the staff and they can give each other something the other really needs now!

A Wiener Dog chair!

Yesterday Aunt Laurie went shopping and sent us the coolest picture of a chair....it's made of wiener dogs. (Thank goodness they weren't real.)
We like it when she goes out with her Iphone and sends us stuff she sees in California. (The staff says that's all the way across the country from here.) She found this at the Peter Alexander store there and thought we'd like it.
She was right.
For those of you who don't know, Peter Alexander is our favorite designer because he always tries to include dachshunds in his pajama designs and other things. He honors his old dachshund friend Penelope with the designs. We think it's a nice thing to do, and we hope our staff will do something that nice for us.

More Maggies! And puppies!

Here's another sharing shout-out for our blog friends Joey and Maggie over at The Long and Short of It.
Check out this blog entry and the live streaming web cam of dachshund pupppies!

And if you've paid careful attention and watched the show, that's 3 Maggies in one blog!

Thanks Joey and Maggie!

Can't they call him something else?

From Bandit:
Here's a news note, courtesy Aunt Meg. It's pretty insulting for those of us out here named Bandit. I seem to get in trouble enough just for licking my own behind. I certainly wouldn't do anything like this.

Dec 8th, 2008 | VALENTINE, Neb. -- A man dubbed the "Butt Bandit" for making greasy imprints of his nether parts on windows in the north-central Nebraska city of Valentine has been sentenced to more than a year in jail.
Cherry County Attorney Eric Scott says police caught 35-year-old Thomas Larvie in the act on Nov. 19.
Scott says Larvie was sentenced Thursday to 13-1/2 months in jail after being convicted of eight misdemeanor counts of public indecency and one of disturbing the peace.
Authorities said Larvie used lotion or petroleum jelly to make imprints of his naked behind -- and sometimes his groin -- on the windows of stores, churches and schools in Valentine beginning in the spring of 2007.
Townspeople dubbed the vandal the "Butt Bandit" even though no theft was involved.

The Holiday Dachshund tree is up

The tree our staff calls "the Christmas Tree" is up and lit. It's really pretty. We prefer to call it the "Holiday Dachshund Tree" because it has -- by our own count -- 32 wiener dog ornaments on it. Ernie the cat can't even try to keep up with that count. Granted, there are cat ornaments -- too many. But, over time our staff has worked for as many cats as dachshunds, so it stands to reason they'd have a few.

Our fave ornaments are those with our names on them. Then, there is the memorial Hattie ornament and the fun memorial Max ornament -- they were early dachshunds in the house and have their own ornaments. The staff is true to them and hangs them every year, along with ornaments they got when they went to Jamaica and New Orleans and Colorado and Louisiana and wherever else they were when they left us at the vet all those times.

















Now that the tree's up, the next fun comes from watching Ernie get in trouble when he knocks things off the tree and tries to climb it. Maggie's betting he gets in trouble within 24 hours; Bandit says it'll be more like 12.

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.

Baby pictures

At least some good has come from the staff's recent push to clean up the house.
They found some baby pictures of us!


Here's Maggie in the back yard for the first time.
Then, it's a picture from her first bath, courtesy Staffer Dad.
And next, it's Bandit as a great-looking youngster.

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!

Aunt Allison turns 6+

Here's something really cool: Aunt Allison turns 6ish this weekend. We think. The staff tells us that dog years and human years are really different and it takes about 7 dog years to equal 1 human year. So if we did our math right, she's not really very old. Or, if we didn't, she'd be really, really old like a dinosaur or something.
We think we must be right on this because she doesn't look really, really old.
Now we're confused.

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.

While we were out

We got to thinking. We should probably give you some idea of what we did during our timeout. We weren't in trouble the whole time. We did regular stuff like get baths and go visit the spa while the staff took a weekend off. We also looked out the window at squirrels a lot when we couldn't get outside to chase them off.


We also got to watch some TV. Dog shows are pretty boring unless you're in them, we guess. We're not really sure we'd want to see this scene all day, either.

And then there was Halloween. The staff wouldn't let us out, but we saw enough horrors on the Internet to serve us for some time to come. It's bad enough seeing people stick fake hotdog buns on wieners like us all the time, but bananas? Please.

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!

Toy joy!

It's been raining all day, and it's really wet. We can't go outside, so we have to play inside. The staff is too busy doing stuff around the house and we have to find other entertainment.
Bandit's favorite game is to sit calmly on his pillow and then sneak off to steal cat food from Ernie's bowl. The staffers hate that and we think it's funny.
Maggie has toys, and they require protection. There's the formerly-stuffed duck and purple toy. Purple toy is her favorite because it's the oldest and it smells really good. Staffer Mom wants to wash it, but we won't let her. Why does she always try to wash our stuff? Can anyone help us with this?

Chihuawhat?

OK, we were really planning to ignore this whole chihuahua movie thing. But we just can't.
We watched the trailer again today when found out "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" opened with a $29 million weekend.
Still not impressed.
Maybe we just don't know enough chihuahuas. We only know 2 chihuahuas we truly like: Snickers and Precious. They've got a very keen fashion sense (see right), and we like their staffers very much.
The others we know are just not fun at all. They don't dig up stuff, don't chase moles and mostly they bark.
Anyway, when we watched the movie trailer again today we were really offended by a line in the movie's chihuahua song "We're the real hot dogs, now hold the bun."
What's that about? Why take a shot at wiener dogs?

Great race gallery!

Here's a link to a huge photo gallery from Saturday's Savannah Wiener Dawg Races on River Street. It was done by the terrific Kim at carriagetradePR and posted on the Savannah Spotted site, which is really near and dear to Staffer Mom. The site helps us a lot because we can see what's going on in town when we can't get out.

We're attaching the link for the newspaper's coverage of the '08 event. It's got a link to more photos, too!
And, we also found out there were Small Dog Races later in the day at Grayson Stadium. The staff conveniently left that out, and it explains where they were yesterday afternoon. Here's a link to photos of that action by our photo friend, Randy.

In the collections, you'll be able to see all the fun stuff and all the people who came to honor wiener dogs.

Sunrise over the race track

Longfellow was back this year! Staffer Mom said he was happy and ready to defend his title. He did pretty well, but another dog won. Oh well.
There were 123 registered racing wieners this year, and plenty more came to cheer.
The staff got there early to set up, and the sun was coming up over the race course. Here's a picture of that, at right.

Quick race updates!

The staff has returned and they brought us goodies and fresh pictures.
We'll add video and photos as they post for you.
Here's a video from this morning.

Wiener race Saturday!

Tomorrow's the day!
It's the Savannah Wiener Dawg Races and we're rarin' to go!
But as of now, we can't go ....again. Our staff goes every year, and they work really hard. Staffer Mom gets to coordinate the Navy sailor race volunteers and Staffer Dad helps with registration and heat assignments. Tonight they went to a reception on the USS Arleigh Burke and had fun...without us. Again. Last we met the Navy wiener racing team from the USS Hawes. They were really fun, and we hope they are well.

But, we got to stay home with grandma and play! She drops stuff on the floor just for us. She rocks!

Tomorrow, we hope we'll get to go. If we don't we'll (sort of) understand. Bandit doesn't want to race, and he'll get tired. Maggie wants to race, but she knows the staff won't have time to put up with her antics if they are volunteering. We know that all the money raised goes to dachshund rescue and related pet charities, so it's ok if we have to stay home in that case.

So, come on down to the races. It'll be at the Waving Girl statue on River Street. It'll be fun. If you want to register to race, go to savannahdachshundclub.com!

We hope to see you there, but if we're not there, look for our staff!

P.S. We'll post pictures!

A spa visit

It's been a very busy week for us, and we've spent the last 4 days at the spa. The staff had to have some time off for some reason, and they dropped us at the spa. We got exercise, pedicures, whirlpool baths, new bandanas and some good, focused attention. At one point, a woman in a white coat poked at us a bit, but that was all the badness. We like the food and toy bin there, so it went very well.

We were glad to see the staff today when they picked us up. They were so happy to see us, they were very nearly wagging. It's time for a nap.

Of course it's good

The staff likes wine, and one of their fave stars of the wine world is Gary Vaynerchuk, Jets fan and online wine guy.
While we're used to good food that comes in bags and boxes, the staff is not. Generally, they've made fun of wine and liquor that comes packaged in boxes. Until now.

Recently, they bought a box of "Bandit" brand wine. They probably bought it because Staffer Mom can't resist anything that has anything to do with us or reminds her of us. (Or it could've been that the box had a whole liter in it and that's more than a regular bottle. Whatever.)
And, she really liked it.
As it turns out, Vaynerchuk likes it, too!
Here's a video to prove it, courtesy Aunt Jenn and Uncle Brad.

Bandit's quite proud a drinkable wine is named for him. Maggie expects equal treatment very soon.

Not just tough. Beagle tough.

Today we've found a new hero for our Fierce List: Sofia the Beagle.
Watch this video to see why. Hang with it and you'll understand, especially if you've followed any of our digging escapades over the years.



Some of our best friends are beagles,including our buddy Sidda who is quite an escape artist in her own right. We also remember with fondness Uncle Brad's old Girlfriend. She wasn't a date -- he had some dogs for dates, but not this one -- she was a great, brave beagle friend. Her stubbornness made her an honorary dachshund. Video star Sofia's tenacity makes us proud.

P.S. Thanks to Houck for passing along the video.

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Get plastic, then shop

We've been begging to go shopping lately, and the staff has been pretty noncommittal. We got tired of waiting and decided to get online and go for a stroll today.

We found this terrific web site, pupstyle.com. It looks like a snooty New York boutique, but we found a few things there to be just what we need to be the coolest wieners in Forsyth Park.

Go there when your staff isn't watching. You'll need to quietly pull the plastic card things out of your staffers' purses or wallets before shopping there. We forgot to do that, so now we have to wait to actually order something.

Snore and snore alike

We found an interesting question on Aunt Allison's blog today: Do pets snore?
Yep, we do. And our staff will verify that.
Her big-ass cat, Bisquick, has inspired a poll to ask people about their pets and snoring. You can vote here.

We know we snore, and we know we dream. No big deal, and we don't disrupt things. The big problem is the staff. Our staffers snore and it's a problem. We are tired of being kept awake and not being able to hear our favorite shows at night.

We totally didn't hear part of the Serena-Venus match the other night, and we also missed the final "auf" the other night on "Project Runway." They may not stay awake for these things, but it's really annoying for us since we can't reach the remote to turn up the sound sometimes. Now we have to wait until Staffer Mom decides to watch a rerun to figure out who won.

(We really hated that whiny guy who created that chicken thing last week, and then there's Stella. Her makeup gets a bit better each week, but that thing she created for last week was awful.)
Who survived? We have no idea, but the whole point here is the staff and their snores.

For once, we think Ernie has the right idea: When a staffer snores, just sit on his or her head so they'll get a mouthful of fur. Now, we have to figure out how to get up on the bed.

Follow us!

We've added something new to the left side of our blog -- actually, 2 things.
- A new blog to read. Friends Jayne and Keith are in London for a few months. They're immersed in the city, and their tales are fun. Catch up on their adventures by clicking in from our blogroll.
- And, you can now be counted among our followers by giving us virtual head and belly rubs. Just click on the "Follow this blog" link and we'll know!

Hanna who?

First of all: Maggie has a new photo. It's her "I really do use the computer" pose. Let us know what you think. Several readers have asked us if we use the computer, and while we were a bit insulted, we can understand how some would doubt us. Keep in mind, we never really said what we use it for.

The week's been a real blur. The staff worked outside putting stuff away for a good part of the week. They continuously griped about hurricanes and someone named Hanna. We don't know much about Hanna, but they sure didn't even try to like her. Then, they told us it was going to rain all day Friday, but it didn't. The grass wasn't even wet on Saturday morning. They've been a real pill, and we want this hurricane thing to move on. Every time one comes near, they just go a little wonkers.

And then the network blamed Hanna for canceling today's USOpen women's final. What's with that? We did get to see Venus vs. Serena the other night. It ran a little late, but we enjoyed it. We couldn't hear anything much because Staffer Dad snored through it, but we saw a great matchup with 2 tough competitors. If they hit a ball at us, we think it would hurt. And we do admit to laughing Friday when Serena smacked that whiny player in pink in the head with a ball. Go Serena!

We were sorta right

Ok, no closets were cleaned out this weekend. We were right about that. But we did get to play outside a lot and watch the US Open. We did get a bath, but that was the only really bad thing that happened. Oh yeah. Maggie got in trouble for charging a springer spaniel on the nightly stroll. She maintains the street near the neighbor's house is her territory since she walks there every night. Staffer Dad disputed the claim. Nothing's been settled, but the spaniel knows who's boss now.

As for the tournament: We approve of this year's bright colors. And we approve of the return of tennis clothing that actually looks like tennis clothing. Maybe the whole cocktail-tennis dress era is over for a bit. Colors we like: Djokovic's green shirt and Serena's bright red dress are nice. She's just great in it! Lots of folks were wearing red though, so we suspect red is the new white -- for now. And we're very happy with Federer's orange shirt. It's just a nice break for all of them.

As for players who didn't win but played with style, let's hear it for Gael Monfils, the French guy who lost to Marty Fish. Poor guy. He lost on his birthday, but he gutted it out.

As for more tennis info: We just found out that tennis rackets used to be strung with catgut. Hear! Hear! (Except for Ernie...he's our friend.)

We're always right

OK. Remember what we said about how the staff would probably find reasons to blow the weekend. So far, we're right on.

They'd probably dispute that, but so far they spent Saturday WITH OTHER DACHSHUNDS at someone else's house talking about the plan for this year's Savannah Wiener Dawg Races. Then last night, they sat around laughing with some other folks from where we used to live and ate dinner and drank wine. Downside: We're a bit miffed about the minimal attention during all that. Upside: They dropped some decent stuff to eat in the kitchen.

Today, they managed to get a little done: Staffer Dad mowed the yard -- it's a lot easier to dig now. And, Staffer Mom fixed the toilet -- apparently a big deal since they refuse to pee outside. Have you ever wondered how much humans could save when they build a house if they'd just go outside for that stuff?
Then -- and we were right about this, too -- Staffer Dad and Buddy Gale watched the Cardinals lose to Houston. Staffer Mom's been focused on the internet and hurricane web sites. (We can understand that -- we don't like those storms either.)

They've promised us an evening watching the US Open. And that's what we've been waiting for. We're pulling for Andy Roddick and Venus -- she is a goddess!

3-day weekend!

The long holiday weekend is finally here, and that means more time with the staff. Every time one of these weekends comes along, they have some inane plan to get stuff done around the house. What that means for us is extra time in the yard, time in the pen and heavy-duty roles as distractions and mediators.
This time they really think they'll get a couple closets and a back room cleaned out. We're very dubious. First of all: They always come up with reasons not to do those chores, and they always end up at the beach for at least one morning. And, they never take us.
Our predictions: They'll blow off Saturday, try to make up for it on Sunday and fail -- we know the Cardinals game comes on at 2. That should finish off Staffer Dad. On Monday, they'll decide they should spend a few hours at the beach because it's a holiday.
On Monday night, we'll end up listening to them grouse because they didn't get much done over the weekend.
Let's hope they prove us wrong. But don't bet on that.

Listen when I meow

From Ernie (the cat): This is my new favorite movie.

A stylish event

If it's not enough for the US Open to be starting this week, we thought we should also remind you that it's Pet Fashion Week in New York. It's like Project Runway stuff except it's all about animals and style and animal charities. Check out the runway shows at this link. There are photos from last year's exhibitors and runway shows, and they'll be adding current ones as the shows occur.
Other than showcases for too few dachshunds and too many for poodles, we're especially thrilled about the design competitions for cool pet stuff, like better-looking food and water dishes.
It's about time!

Bye Olympics. Hello US Open

We've enjoyed the Olympics this year. We think there are some improvements to be made (add a water hazard and snarling pit bulls to rhythmic gymnastics, for instance), but all in all, it's fun.
Careful readers will know that we really like tennis, too. And, it's US Open time!
We'll be watching carefully for great serves and interesting fashion.
Anyone want to weigh in on who'll play the best and look the best?