Outsmarted by a Dachshund...

Dracen is asking for a little brother again.  He's always been the little one trying to keep up with his big brother and cousin and older friends and while yes, he can be a little rambunctious at times, he does have a very nurturing nature and has always been drawn to babies. I've always said he missed his calling on being a big brother because I know he'd make a great one.  


This is not the first time we've had this conversation and he knows that I can't have any more babies so last night he tried to find a way around this by saying, "I know you can't have another baby but couldn't we adopt one?  Because I never got the chance to be a big brother."  


Ouch.  I almost cried.


I also began suspecting that many a third or fourth child was had for this very reason because talk about tugging on your heartstrings... This tugs on mine in a fierce way.  


And I would probably have tried to oblige him by promising him another Dachshund but Brisco Darling has been a very bad little wiener this week in regards to hole digging, knocking over trash cans and doing his business in the house.  Let's just say he's lucky  that I'm a tenderhearted, animal loving, tree hugging Dachshund freak who tends to forget the unacceptable act he committed just as soon he rolls over on his back and pats his cute li'l freckled face with his paws.

Charlie wonders if getting a well-trained big dog would help him to learn right from wrong. But I know a thing or two about how Dachshunds operate and it's not that they don't know right from wrong, rather they just want to do things their way.  And who can't relate to that?  
Dachshunds are smart and here's one example of how I know this...


I give the Darlings one Greenie each every day.  There are few things in this world Charlene (Li'l Bit) loves more than her daily Greenie. Brisco, on the other hand, could usually take it or leave it though usually he takes it and lays it down somewhere he can see it.  


It took me awhile to catch on to what Li'l Bit was doing.  She immediately takes her Greenie into the living room where she devours it in seconds.  Brisco takes his into the sunroom, places it on the floor, gives it the nose tap on each end, breathes on it, leaves it on the floor, then jumps up in the chair to watch over it.  


Li'l Bit knows this.  She also knows that if she goes in to nab his Greenie, that he will jump down off his perch to stake claim over it if she even thinks about going near it.  So here's the plan she concocted...


She scratches on the door to go outside knowing that Brisco can rarely resist the urge to go outside himself and that he will come running to go out too.  And he does.  But as soon as he gets out the door, she says, "Psych!" and instead of going outside, high tails it to the sunroom where she snatches the abandoned Greenie and begins consuming it at record speed.  


Poor Brisco realizes what's happened before he ever gets off the deck and proceeds to bark loudly and angrily to get back in only to discover that it is too late.  So what does the sucker (a.k.a. me) do?  I give him another Greenie that he wastes no time chomping down this time.  


I finally caught on to what was going on so this doesn't happen anymore.  The sad thing is, she pulled it off several times before I realized what was going on... 


Which is just one good reason why I should probably stick to the two kid, two dog rule for now. 


Plus, Charlie's oldest son is getting married next year and we all know that babies come next... I'll have to point out to Dracen how fun it can be to be an uncle. 


But wait?  Wouldn't that kinda make me a gra... 


Shut the front door!  

This, That and The Other...

On the news last night they showed a nearby Best Buy parking lot where several insane people had been lined up down the sidewalk since yesterday morning (and some apparently since Tuesday!) awaiting the store to open last night at midnight.  A few had even pitched their tents.  Is that even legal? They were all after that t.v. advertised for $199.  All I can say is, I'd hate to have been there when they ran out.  


I would not go out into that mob of blood thirsty bargain hunters if I was guaranteed a free t.v..  I prefer to do the majority of my Christmas shopping with the click of a tiny mouse while enjoying my amaretto flavored Folgers in my pajamas, complete with bare feet, bedhead, and a couple of lazy Dachshunds by my side.  


And speaking of the lazy Dachshunds, at least one of them...ahem...Brisco Darling!...was a very bad little wiener while we were away for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.  Turns out he somehow got the memo about Thanksgiving being a day for getting your gluttony on because he managed to get into the cabinet and drag the trash can out from under the kitchen sink and proceed to feast on a buttload of old leftover chicken breasts and boneless pork chops that Charlie threw away yesterday morning. 


I told him he was a very bad little wiener so he rolled over onto his back and gave me his best "I'm so sorry" look with his belly bulging on both sides and resembling a prized cantaloupe.  And then he politely put himself to bed at 9pm.  


I, on the other hand, have succeeded at making it through two Thanksgiving get-togethers while only eating one piece of dessert, key lime pie.  If I ever turn down a piece of key lime pie, call 911 because I'm either deathly ill or my body has been taken over by an alien life form.  It just doesn't happen.  


I'm quite sure, however, that I more than made up for the calories I didn't consume in pie by inhaling countless spoonfuls of  Nutella that I've been sneaking out of the kitchen cabinet for the past week.  I had somehow managed, in my forty years of life, to escape the highly addictive, mouth watering, magical deliciousness that is Nutella.  


I blame Pinterest.  For all those seductive Nutella-containing recipes.


And the grocery store. For putting it right there beside the peanut butter. 


Because I am now in need of a good Nutella Rehab.  So if you know of one, please send me their contact information asap.  


In other Thanksgiving news, the boys left out last night for a two day hunting trip with their popaw, uncle, and cousin.  They had asked yesterday morning if they could take their BB guns with them to which we reluctantly said yes to.  But we promptly changed that to a no after I was popped in the mouth by a Nerf dart while minding my own business in Charlie's dad's living room yesterday afternoon.  


I shouted out, "I WILL KILL YOU!" before I even realized what or whom had shot me.  Not my proudest mom moment but what can I say?  It just came out. 

The guilty party aka the Dracenator/Idea Man began apologizing profusely and nearly had a complete meltdown once we informed him that he would not be taking his BB gun along on his hunting trip.  He insisted that he really only meant to shoot Charlie in the shoulder and instead accidentally hit me in the mouth.  And I explained to hit what would happen if he were to "accidentally" pop someone in the eye with his BB gun.  At the threat of not going on the trip at all, he reluctantly sucked it up and piped down.  


And before I go, I must share this story told by my mother-in-law Wednesday night about a customer complaint she received back when she worked in the Sears and Roebuck customer service department back in the 70s...


She politely answered the phone when she was blasted by a man shouting that he had a new baby who would NOT, for the love of God, STOP crying, that he had been up ALL night long, had missed his ever-lovin' plane and that THAT G.D. PILSBURY DOUGHBOY HAD EXPLODED AND COOKED ALL OVER THE INSIDE OF THEIR NEW REFRIGERATOR THAT WAS AS HOT AS AN OVEN AND THAT HE WANTED SOMEBODY OUT THERE ASAP!!!!  


Turns out the compressor on the refrigerator had been installed backwards and it was cooking their food. I did not even know that was possible.  She and two other employees ended up going out to the house where she was put in charge of watching the baby that wouldn't stop crying while the mess was cleaned up, the refrigerator was fixed and the wife went grocery shopping.    


Now THAT is what I call customer service!  Too bad it doesn't exist in the world still today.... 


Now if y'all will excuse me, I probably should think about getting dressed since it is now noon and I'm still sitting here in my pajamas beside the bad little dumpster diving wiener dog who is now producing some extremely foul smelling gas!  


But at least I'm not at Wal-mart...

The Fairy Princess and the Wiener Shark

"This hat is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not going to look at you!"

"You think you've got it bad?! Hmph!"

"Help!  Somebody!  Anybody?!"  

"Be afraid...Be very afraid!"  

Happy Hallowiener!

Dexter...The Wiener Dog Outlaw

Y'all have heard me talk a lot about the Darling Dachsies, Brisco "Big Boy" and Charlene "Li'l Bit", and about Dixie Dog the Dachshund who was such a big part of my life for so many years.  But I have not spent much time talking about Dexter Dog, also a Dachshund (surprise!). 


Dexter was a Dappled Dachshund (chocolate merle) and the best surprise gift I have ever received.  Dixie Dog was five years old when Darin and Devin came home with Dexter, a tiny puppy, as a Mother's Day gift in 2001.  My heart melted into a big ol' pile of mush when that tiny flop-eared pup got out of the truck and marched up to me with his proud little head held high.  Dixie Dog was not exactly thrilled about her new roommate but eventually she whooped him into submission he won her over.  


Dexter had a bit of a wild hair and he wanted so much to be the alpha dog, a title Miss Dixie was not about to surrender.  Dixie never left the yard.  She knew the boundaries and stuck to them.  Dexter...not so much.  He went next door and barked at the neighbors when they were in the yard and ran circles around them while I tried to catch him, he was known to bite at the shoes and ankles of new people who came to the house and jump up in a chair at the table and eat your food right off your plate if you turned your back for too long.  


But he was also a very sweet and loving little dachsie who, like most all dachsies, could steal your heart right out from under you. If I held him or put him in the bedroom until the new people were seated in the house I could then let him out and he would love them to pieces.  


After Darin's accident though he became a little harder to handle. I believe he felt a little lost (well, all of us did) without the person he saw as the leader of his pack and thought it his utmost duty and honor to protect his family. And to him that meant biting our neighbor's ankles as she tried to take her daily walk.  


I was struggling.  With grief.  With caring for a baby and a four year old on my own.  With life as I knew it.  We didn't live on a busy street and usually he'd go right out, do his business and come right back. 


Well this particular day, I let him out and then went to tend to my crying baby when I heard him barking like mad. I went to the door to see him at the top of the driveway and the neighbor jumping around.  I yelled at him and she yelled back at me, "Do you know your dog BITES?!" 


Ohhh.....crap! 


I was between a rock and a hard place.  He tended to get more brave if I was with him so my fear was that if I walked up there he would only bite her again.  I decided to make my way up there and managed to wrangle him in though I think he did get a couple of more nips in first.  She was gracious.  She really was.  She, after all, knew what I was going through.  She just wanted to know if he had had all his shots which, thank goodness, he had.  


I apologized profusely, took my bad little wiener in the house and went on about my day which consisted of running some errands.  Later that afternoon when I picked the boys up at my mother-in-law's, my sister-in-law (who was there picking up her kids), informed me that the neighbor (who worked with her...it's a small town!) had come to see  their nurse just to get her bites checked out because she was actually off that day.  


And the nurse informed her that she had no other choice but to report it to the police because there was a law stating that if someone came to her with a dog bite, she had to report it. Well, my nerves did not need this!  


I got home to find a police officer's card stuck in my front door.  He had written... your dog bite a person please call me.  I remember because the fact that he wrote bite instead of bit and did not capitalize or punctuate really got under my skin. 


So I was a good citizen and called the police department to be told that I would need to come on down to the station to show proof of his rabies vaccination and to sign a form that stated I agreed to keep him quarantined for a few days.  I honestly think he was trying to fight back laughter over the fact of the matter... this tiny little wiener dog had been reported for unruly conduct.    


I  wasted no time having my backyard fenced in, which he loathed, but it had to be done.  


Dexter Dog got sick that Fall.  The vets determined he had an autoimmune disease, Hemolytic Anemia, and despite all the efforts of the animal hospital team and all the money I spent, he died about three days later.  I was, of course, devastated.  He was only three and a half years old.  And that was seven years ago this month.


But still to this day we laugh about little Dexter Dog stories, especially that one about the time he got in trouble with the law!

If I Was a Hoarder...

To know me is to know of my obsession with love for all things wiener dog.  I cannot help myself.  I am just drawn to those little long dogs and have been since 1995 when I first fell hook, line and sinker in love with a long haired Dachshund I called Dixie Dog who was my constant companion and shadow for 14 years.  


And I have spent much time here on this blog talking about the Darling Dachsies we adopted nearly two years ago.  Heck, they are even over there in my "about me" section.  I dress them up and take pictures of them that I then sometimes post here on this blog which I realize probably causes some of you to throw up in your mouth a little, click quietly away as quickly as you came, or just chalk me up as being slightly off my rocker.   


But I know there are those of you who understand and maybe even find it somewhat endearing, either because you are an over the top wiener dog and/or animal lover and tree hugger type yourself or because you have a similar obsession love of something in your life that prompts people to wonder about your sense of sanity at times.  


I've talked here before about how I would love to be a foster for the dachshund rescue organization we adopted the Darlings from but don't because knowing myself the way I do, I fear I would just not be able to part with any of the precious little wieners I took under my wing and would thus find myself with a house full of them and then the cast and crew of that Animal Planet show, Confessions: Animal Hoarding would eventually come a knockin' at my door.  


Okay, that wouldn't really happen because number one,  animal hoarding is cruel and number two, it's flat out disgusting.  Have y'all seen that show?  Well, I have and let me just say that I will not be hopping aboard that bus in this lifetime.  


I've also seen more than my fair share of Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive episodes.  I can't, no matter how hard I try, turn away from that madness.  I mean, y'all, the dysfunction they uncover on these shows puts the Jerry Springer Show to shame.  You just can't make this stuff up. Who are these people and why do they feel this compelling need to keep every stitch of clothing they've ever worn,   every Q-tip they've ever stuck in their ear and every pizza box and stray cat to ever show up on their front porch?


I mean...come on!  Is this hoarding or is this extreme laziness?  There's a thin line, people...a thin line. 


But anyway, back to what I was saying...about the wiener dogs.  If (and that's a big if) I was a hoarder type, I suppose I'd be hoarding up wiener dog paraphernalia. You know?  Stuff like this...

And yes, all that stuff really is in my house but none of it is on the floor covered in cat puke and/or goat hair, buried underneath ten year's worth of garbage, being gnawed on by sewer rats and multiplied by five thousand and two. 


But if I was a hoarder, you can bet your sweet cheeks that's the type of stuff I'd be dumpster diving for....


Just as soon as A&E's Hoarders truck pulled out of my driveway.


What would you hoard?  Mama Kat wants to know.  
  

The Wiener Fever and Reality T.V.

Hello.  My name is Diane and I am a Dachsaholic. 


So we made our second trip to the annual North Carolina Wiener Roast on Saturday and just like last year, I came home with the fever.  You know how some women get baby fever when they're around babies and their uterus starts to ache for another?  


Well I don't get that but I come down with the wiener dog fever about once a quarter, with my worst case coming on after I've attended the wiener roast where I am surrounded by Dachshund lovers with their Dachsies of all shapes, sizes, colors, and personalities.  


I know I could become a foster and help lots of little wieners find their forever homes but I know me and I know how easily and quickly I become attached to those little long dogs so I know I would just end up with a house full of them that I just could not, under any circumstances, part with.  


And then my family and friends would stage an intervention against me and you'd see me on that Animal Planet show, Confessions: Animal Hoarding, where I'd be trying to convince some therapist why I really and truly do need a hundred and twenty one wiener dogs living in my house. 


And Charlie and the boys would be all..."Look!  It's us or the dogs!"  and I'd be all, "Can I sleep on it?"  And that's never good.  


Speaking of freaky reality t.v. shows, I watched one last night that frightened me a little.  I had not planned on it.  It just kinda happened.  No, really. 


You see, I was watching Sister Wives  (because how can anyone not watch a show about a family consisting of one husband, four wives and a hundred and fifty kids?) and it came on right after that and I just could not turn away.  Could not.  It was that whole train wreck syndrome thing.  


Oh, but before I tell you about the freakiest of freak shows, I have to talk about Kody Brown and his wives for just a moment.  Did any of y'all see this last night? 


The family was planning a big move to Vegas because they were all over the top with paranoia about being prosecuted for their polygamous lifestyle after coming out on TLC last year and Janelle (wife number 2 and the wife who seems to me to have the most brains of the four wives) got upset with Kody because she thought they should leave a day earlier than he was planning to leave.  


So he goes over to Christine, wife number 3, and starts whining to her about the argument he just had with Janelle, saying how unreasonable she was being. 


And y'all.  I just about fell out of my chair when he referred to her as "your sister wife".  She says, "No, she's your wife."  And he says, "No, right now she's your sister wife!"  like you would say to your spouse when your kid is being a little tyrant..."Did you see that big A. mess your son just made?!"


I could not believe my ears.  I had to rewind that sucker for an instant replay.  


All I can say is I hope last night wasn't his night to sleep with Janelle because if she watched the airing of that episode then I'm willing to bet Kody Brown was in deep polygamy horse dookie with wife number 2.  


But that was absolutely nothing compared to the freakiness of the show that came on afterwards.  It was about a man who could not get his 600 pound girlfriend fat enough.  He encourages her to stuff her face to her heart's content and is trying to help her reach her goal of 1,000 pounds.  Say what?!


He confessed that he finds nothing sexier or more appealing than rolls and rolls of fat covered in cellulite.  And apparently, he is not the only one because there is actually a term for his fetish.  Feederism.  


If I was a betting woman, I would bet my wiener dogs that  Dr. Phil and Jillian Michaels would give their right arms to get a piece of that crazy train action. 


And I'd tune in to watch. 


But I'd never really hand over my wiener dogs.  

WW: The Darling Dachsie Diaries

"Aren't I pretty?"

"What was that?"

                              "Hey, psst!  Get up!  I think I just saw a squirrel!"
                                           

                                                "Where?!  I don't see anything". 

                                        
                                       
                            "See, see...there!  in the bush beside the window"   

                                 
                                     "Ohhh, there it is!  Get over here, quick!"

                            
                                               "Where?  I STILL don't see it!"

  

     "How can you NOT see it?!  It's RIGHT there!...ohhh...ohhhh....I gotta get out...gotta get it...gotta get out and get it NOW!"

                                      "Hey, come back!  I DON'T SEE IT!!!"

                                                        "Ugghhh...I'm outta here. 

      Who cares about a stupid squirrel anyway?!"

                                                                      "I'm so pretty."