10 things your dachshund won't tell you

By Bonnie and Billy Ray Dryden

"With nearly 25 years of combined experience 

under our collars, you can trust us to tell the truth."

  

1. You think we miss you when you’re gone. The truth will astound you.

You desperately want to think that someone, anyone, needs and misses you when you aren’t home. Sure, we yelp and wail as you’re walking out the door just to mess with your head but the moment you leave, we’re off to la-la land. When we’re awoken by the sound of the garage door opening, we start weeping loudly, like the dogs in the youtube videos when their masters return from overseas military duty. You assume we’ve been hysterical with grief the whole time.

The fact of the matter is, it’s nice when you leave so we don’t have to pretend we care about you 24/7.

2. How do we really feel about children? You may be surprised.

Labs, Golden Retrievers and Irish Setters are said to be “good” with children. So if you, for some inexplicable reason, genuinely like human children, by all means get one of those simple-minded breeds. We dachshunds despise children. We’ll generally leave them alone, keeping a wary distance, but if they reach down to pet us we won’t hesitate to bite. We know that, if push comes to shove, you’d get rid of the kids or grandkids before you’d get rid of us. We have that kind of hold over you.

3. Your home is our Poland.

Like another well-known German (OK, technically he was from Austria but this isn’t a history lesson) we get off on seizing territory that doesn't belong to us and making it our own. Your favorite easy chair? Ours. Your bed? Ours. Those rooms you want to keep us out of so you can have at least a few pieces of upholstered furniture that aren't covered with stains from our incessant paw licking? Ours. Every rug in the house is ours, too. So is the front passenger seat of your car. Ours ours ours.

4. We’re little Houdinis.

Every dachshund can open any door – including locked doors – any time we want. That means that you’ll have no privacy, even when using the toilet. (We like to watch.) How do we do it? That’s a trade secret but it has to do with applying gentle, steady pressure at the very bottom of the door, something our low stature makes it easy for us to do, which springs the latch, enabling us to waltz into rooms you want to keep us out of.

5. Cross us and you’ll regret it.

Forbid us to enter the dining room while you’re hosting a dinner party … remark to your spouse about how, just this once, you’d like to be able to roll over in bed without coming face to face with a dachshund … refer to one of us as a “wiener" (how’d you like to be called, say, a “Butterball?”) … go on vacation and check us into a boarding kennel instead of taking us with you … and you'd better watch your back. Or, more aptly, your feet. Specifically, what they step in.

6. We’re high maintenance.

Your annual vet bills will approximate the gross national product of a Central American country. We have extra salivary glands that generate twice the drool of ordinary dogs, so our teeth require cleaning at least twice as often. It’s a long stretch between our front and rear legs so our backs can and do go out on a regular basis; a substantial percentage of us will require disk surgery costing thousands. We hate having our nails trimmed. If you try to do it yourself, we will twist and turn and shriek with so much feigned pain that you’ll be afraid of injuring our backs, so you’ll take us to a groomer -- exactly what we wanted in the first place because we love car rides. We get bored lying around the house all day looking cute.

7. We’re one-person dogs. And that person isn’t you.

For purposes of discussion, let’s say there are two people in your household – Person A and Person B.

Let’s assume that Person A walks us, feeds us, gives us treats when we make ca-ca or peeps outside, cleans up after us, takes us to the vet and groomer and defends us vigorously when Person B complains about our breath and/or nonstop barking when she is trying to talk on the phone and/or unfriendliness toward strangers.

We will ignore Person A and lavish all our affection on Person B. Don’t ask why. It’s in our DNA.

8. Our favorite thing to eat is …

something we hesitate to mention by name in a family forum like tomdryden.com. But when your back is turned, we’ll happily pounce on a steaming pile of this delicacy the same way you pounce on a platter of chicken wings at a Super Bowl party. Then you pick us up and kiss us. If you only knew …

9. We think you’re an idiot.

You talk baby talk to us. You cook us beef and chicken (organic) whenever we seem bored with the expensive canned food you carefully mix with the kibble that’s supposedly formulated to strengthen dachshund backs you special-order from Denmark. There are no repercussions when we do things that disappoint you, such as eating your sofa. (We know of one Florida couple who tell friends they’ve had to buy one sofa for each of the six dachshunds that have owned them during their thirty-some years of marriage. Their friends think they are idiots and so do we.)

We sleep in your bed, live in your house, lounge on your furniture, get great medical care, etc. How much do we pay? Zip. Nada. You pick up the tab for everything then allow us to rule your lives. That’s as it should be. We’re smarter than you and don’t you forget it.

10. We’re addictive.

Once you live with a dachshund, you’ll never even consider another breed. Why?

Re-read the last sentence of point #9.