Weinerdog Bliss

My dogs are capable of disarming goofiness. Just when you think they’re going to be dignified and you can take a becoming photo of them, they do something silly. Really, in my opinion, that makes for better photographs, anyway. Honest and all.

Lacy and the ubiquitous rawhide chip. She’s as bad as Telly Savalas with his sucker.

Daisy was in the oregano patch. She looked pretty there so I asked her to hold still and let me get a fetching image.

Lily fell asleep next to me on the couch. As she slept, she slid, ever so slowly, headfirst off the couch. She never did wake up.

Rosie and Lacy were on the couch. Rosie was gnawing on her back leg and Lacy was turned watching. When I called their names they turned their heads toward me, only Rosie’s ear didn’t want to turn.

Sweet Daddio has a dog. Her name is Lacy and she is a black and tan longhaired miniature dachshund. Or maybe a small standard, I don’t remember. Anyway, Lacy is the canine equivalent of a Demon Spawn from Heck. She’s not really bad enough to be from Hell, but she is working on her Masters Degree in Mind Manipulation and, to me, that makes her from Heck.

She is physically quite lovely, with a tri-colored glossy coat and long feathers on her tail and belly. She is mostly black, with rust colored markings on her face and legs, and platinum blonde highlights on her belly and the underside of her tail. She looks like some sort of very sophisticated punk rocker with an account at Jose’s in Beverly Hills.

Lacy likes to talk. When she has something important to say, she sits about 4 feet away from you and goes “Yomp.” She’ll then glare for a minute, and “Yomp.” again. If that fails to spur you to her desired action (chew bone, please, or maybe a biscuit, or, failing that, a medium rare rib-eye will suffice), she gets down on her belly and gives you the Demon Spawn From Heck Glare of Persuasion. I, of course, am immune to such tactics. Sweet Daddio is not, and she knows this.

She is capable of a whole range of emotive facial expression.

She can look coy.

This is how she looks when in Demonic Mode. It’s not the flash making her eyes red. They really do that. Reaaaaally.

She is capable of a disarming sweetness.

Most of the time she just looks sneaky.

As an antidote for all this exposure to such duplicitousness, I offer you a picture of the dog that Lacy Doppelgangers. This is Rosie, my dog, and a sweeter, more ingenuous creature you’ll never meet. She hasn’t a malicious bone in her body. No one would ever dream of accusing her of being Demon Spawn, because she’s a Perfect Angel, the Pollyanna of the canine world, A Tootsie Roll compared to Lacy’s liter of Jose’ Cuervo Gold. Rosie is Generous and Kind and never, ever sneaky or self-serving.

This is her “humans are stupid and if I just do my ears they’ll think I’m perfect” look. Fortunately for me, she is unaware that her eyes turn red when she’s plotting something sinister.

Maybe 2 hours a day, she ian’t into any trouble, she’s not planning a coup d’etat in a small African nation, or chewing something up then blaming another dog for the mess.

So that’s Lacy. Lord, it’s like having a precocious 10 year old in the house all day. An Entitled precocious 10 yr old. With an overdeveloped sense of worth. Geez.

With more weinerdog bliss!
Yesterday, it got very, very quiet. It was around 2 pm, and I’d been busy ding whatever it is that I do, and noticed the Peace and Quiet.

No growling, no yarking or yomping, no sound of furniture being gnawed or small plastic objects being mauled. I felt no tongues on the back of my leg, nor did I trip over something soft and furry. Indeed, all was peace and quiet. I looked around, and here’s why:

Lily

Lacy

Daisy

Rosy

If I didn’t know better, I’d be horrified by the carnage and devastation. Instead, I sighed “aw…so sweeeeet” and immortalized the moment with my camera. It didn’t last, but I can prove it’s possible to non-believers. I hereby swear on the last bottle of beer that these pictures were taken within a 1 minute period of time.

Meet my adopted sisters. Coco and Maggie.

My parents, recently retired and cognisant of Wienerdog Bliss, wished to partake of the Bliss themselves. Plus Mom wanted someone to keep her company whilst Dad occupied himself in the blacksmith shop. So they went to the self-same breeder where we adopted Rosie, and purchased themselves a pair of wienerdogs, half-sisters to Rosie and sharing many of her characteristics. Such as wanky ears.

They are personable little dogs. Coco is adventurous and cocky, taking on all comers and fearing no one. She resembles my Lacy very much, personality -wise. Maggie is more cautious, approaching life, strange dogs and unfamilar toys with equal parts curiosity and trepidation. She also has this gawdawful high pitched helium filled bark that makes me want to run to the nearest muzzle and sew it tightly around her snout.

They are, essentially, sweet natured dogs, affectionate like dachshunds should be. Our dogs get along with them pretty well, once the butt sniffing is finished and they’ve learned which toys they can play with. My parents are planning a 2 week trip to Scotland this summer, and are Allowing us to babysit Coco and Maggie for the duration. can you imagine 6 screaming wienerdogs in one household?? Good thing it’s Summer and I’ll have household help. I suppose it will be a chance to find out if we really have reached our threshold with 4, or if we should seek out some more.

I was going to do a cute and witty little post about weinerdog noses, how they are prehensile, and how they have their own little brains that lead the bigger, more intelligent rest of the weinerdog down the road to perdition. I was going to include photographs of said noses. I tried, truly I did, but…well. everytime I put the camera down low to get a good look-see, the nose would immediately apply itself to the lens, rendering the photograph an uninterpretable blur with maybe an occasionable eyeball for reference. they just move to much and they think the camera is a great flashing slab of beef jerky that must be licked. Any other time they would sit, looking picturesque and ladylike. oh well. maybe later

I compared them to candy, now, due to lack of sleep and it being Friday so I’m all caught up on laundry and cleaning, I am going to compare the Household Li’l Darlins to other things.

Bread.
Rosie (the tootsie roll) would be a crusty french roll.

Daisy (the peanut brittle) would be an artisan loaf of whole wheat bread sweetened with honey.

Lily (the marshmallow peep) would be cheap white sandwich bread.

Lacy (the snickers bar) would be Cinnamon Raisin bread, lightly toasted and slathered with real butter.

Vegetables
Rosie: a small dish of baby pattypan squash, gently steamed and sprinkled with fresh chopped parsley

Daisy: an eggplant, one of those big ones, sliced, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with chopped oregano and kosher salt, and grilled.

Lily: a can of plain Pringles

Lacy: succotash, made with fresh off the cob corn and edemame instead of lima beans.

Meat:

Rosie: a roasted Cornish hen, stuffed with an orange

Daisy: a Beef tenderloin, crusted with horseradish and black pepper, roasted rare

Lily: a package of cheap baloney

Lacy: Venison chili, from scratch, lots of cumin and red pepper and maybe chipotles if there are any in the pantry.

Fruit:

Rosie:a ladyfinger banana

Daisy: a papaya

Lily: a bowl of cherry jello

Lacy: a granny smith apple, slightly underripe

Flowers:

Rosie: a marigold, small and consistantly cheerful

Daisy: A zinnia, one of the big ones that looks like a party on a stem, orange, sturdy, and dependable, lasts for 2 weeks in a vase

Lily: a hothouse rose, lovely to look at but no fragrance

Lacy: a Pat Austin English rose: large and sturdy, with an open character and phenomenal fragrance

Fabric:

Rosie: cotton calico, navy blue background with flowers in pink and lavender

Daisy: cotton canvas-16 oz, unbleached and undyed, emminently practical and attractive in it’s own unassuming way

Lily: silk chiffon, lovely and soft and good for nothing except being pretty

Lacy: a hand knit afghan of lightweight wool/angora blend yarns

Cars:
Rosie: a Ford Fiesta, tiny and practical, royal blue, with the perpetual sack of groceries in the back.

Daisy: a Chevy Tahoe, large and practical. Not great gas milage but everyone wants one, loaded with all the neighbors kids, a couple of pets, and a cooler full of sodas to share.

Lily: a Mazda Miata. not practical for anything but fun to have, silver with a black top, and Jackie O sunglasses hanging from the mirror.

Lacy: a 1964 Chevy Impala customized into a iridescent purple with light teal flames hydrolically enhanced Lowrider, bump and grind stereo, tufted teal green upholstery and an 8-ball gear shift knob

And so ends my list for the day.

Rosie would be a tootsie roll…small and hard, but sweet. Simple, with a single purpose. One knows what one is getting with Rosie.

Daisy would be something substantial and honest. Peanut brittle.

Lily…well. Lily would be a Marshmallow Peep.

and then comes Lacy. She is uncompromising, complex, and chunky. Lacy is a King Sized Snickers Bar.

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.