Weinerdog Bliss

Wienerdogs have silly and expressive faces. Catching them on camera can be tricky, but if you know what makes them yawn or stick their tongues out, you can catch them in some less-than-dignified expressions.

GNAWS! (with humble apologies to JAWS)

must keep the tongue carefully to the side so as not to inadvertently chomp it.

I’m innocent, see me smile innocently like an innocent li’l doggie?

She truly is channeling Gene Simmons. She has the hair, she has the mask, and she has the tongue.

Profile of a Dachshund, Digital Art by Famed Photographer Rootietoot

I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU PUBLISHED THAT PICTURE OF ME ON THE INTERNET! WITHOUT ASKING!

HAW! *snort* HAW! You published that picture of her on the internet!

And finally…

What weighs 35 pounds and sounds like a quartet of drunk lumberjacks at a chainsaw convention?

Lily is a recently aquired Weinerdog. She is handsomely pedigreed, with a long and illustrious ancestry and the physique of a supermodel. She is sweet natured, if pushy, and has a highly developed sense of entitlement. She is a canine Paris Hilton. We briefly considered naming her Paris, but decided against it, since no one will remember Ms. Hilton in 5 years and folk would wonder why we named a dog after an overrated city in France.

She is remarkably photogenic creature, but thanks to the advent of digital photography and the freedom it affords, I have been able to capture her prodigious goofy side. It is the part of her personality that allows us to forgive the avaricious facet of her nature.

Enjoy these Pictures of Lily (kudos to the first person unrelated to me who can name the reference)

She’s Feminine and Dainty in All She Does.

She’s Lovely and As Substantial as Whipped Air

She’s Talented! She Dances!

She Sings!

She has Attitude (talk to the hand)

She is utterly self-assured.

except when she’s not…

I have a leetle “doggie”. Her name is Rosie, she weighs a hefty 6 pounds, and she is actually an alien pretending to be a doggie. I know this because I can look at her and see that she is, in some nebulous way, falling short of actual “doggyness” and landing squarely in the “looks like could potentially be a dog but the jury is still out” category.

Physically, she falls short in just about every way. Technically she is a pedigreed weiner dog, with fine papers and a heritage that rivals Prince Charles. In reality, everything is slightly off. Her ears have these funky folds that make them stick out straight sideways, so from behind she resembles a toreodor’s hat.

Sometimes they lay back alongside her head, like the wings of a wasp. They never, ever, hang down floppy like a fit and proper weiner dog. Her eyes are just slightly too large for their sockets, so she looks perpetually surprised. Then again, she’s kind of dumb so she may actually be perpetually surprised. Her chest is thick, lacking the prominent keelbone necessary for weiner dogs to look normal. Her body is slightly too short, and her tail is lumpy and stiff, sticking straight out from her behind instead of hanging down.

Her way of movement involves entirely too much effort to be natural. When she runs, her tail wags in sinc with her legs, but when she is happy, her tail curls to the left around her hindquarter, vibrates for 5 seconds or so, then curls to the right, and vibrates again. All this while attempting but failing to say something meaningful either in Dog or English :”aaaaahhhhrrrrRRRRAAAAAHHHHHHHrrrrrraaaaaaahhh…!”

She doesn’t bark in a normal way, rather, she starts a prolonged wail punctuated by gasps for air and the frantic beating of her front paws on the floor. Even our other, proper weiner dog, Daisy, looks at Rosie as if to wonder “jest whut in the HAIL are yew doin’??”

Now, for all her physical shortcomings and oddities, Rosie is sweetness personified…or make that doggified. She shares. Have you ever known a weiner dog that shares? She’ll bite a dog biscuit in half and give you part of it. She’ll grab a toy and wave in front of your feet until you pick it up and play with it. She’ll ask POLITELY (aaaarrrrhhhh..?)for a tasty nibble. Weiner dogs are never polite when food is involved. This quality alone can confirm her dubious heritage.

The one, true, weiner dog quality she does have is her love of burrowing. Weiner dog bliss is achieved by throwing down a blanket and letting them dive under it and root around. Bigger bliss happens when you throw them under the bed covers and they discover your naked toes. Weiner dogs have velvet tongues with noticeable lack of slobber. And they love to do doggie kisses. Well…even there she shows abnormality. She will stick out her tongue, attach it to some random body part (toes, hand, back of knee) and leave it there, as if velcroed to the spot. She’ll give you that wall-eyed look as if to say “he’p…my ton’ i’ ‘tuck”, then roll her tongue back up and tuck it it her snout. She has a very long tongue. It has been postulated that her tongue is the reason for her lack of intellect, for she must roll the whole thing up and fit it in her head, leaving no room for brain. It’s a thought.

At any rate, if she is a genuine Alien Pretender, then she’s a benevolent alien, and she’s licking my toes.

This is a reprint of a post from over a year ago, on another blog. Rosie has since developed brains, but she is still weird. She has also developed a most unusual gait. She runs normally with her front legs, and tucks one back leg up and hops on the other. We thought perhaps she had hip problems on one leg, but since she doesn’t discriminate between legs, and will in fact alternate hopping legs, we decided she’s just energy-efficient.