About 10 years ago I told my then husband that I wanted a lap dog. His response was, “I don’t think you really do.” My response was, with a little bit of ire I’ll admit, “I do too!!! You have your dog and I want mine. I want one that can be in my lap.” He, with resignation sighed, “Okay, but I don’t think you really need one.”
Shortly after that we went to another town for Ken to marry an old acquaintance and his fiance. Oh, I forgot to mention that Ken, my husband, was a minister. Anyway, when we walked into the double wide several dachshunds came running to me. One was a puppy about 6 weeks old. I fell in love. She cuddled, nibbled my fingers, looked me in the eye and we became friends for several hours. The guy, whose puppy she was, bred Dachshunds and he told me I could have her. Ken again said, “Are you sure?” to me not to the guy. Well, of course I said yes, but since we were going on someplace else after the wedding we decided we’d come back and pick her up later.
About a week after that the guy called and said his new bride was not happy that he had given ‘her dog’ away so he reneged but told me his mama dog was pregnant. I could have the pick of the litter.
In March he called and said birth had happened but that it had been a litter of one and it was mine if I wanted it. I said yes.
When the pup was six weeks old we went after him. He was absolutely adorable. He could fit in the palm of my hand and I fell in love with him.
Oh dear! for the first six weeks I had him he cried every night. I tried the ticking clock, the stuffed toy, the harsh commands. Nothing worked. Since it was summer time so I was out of school but Ken still had to get up to go to work every day, I resorted to going downstairs and holding that dumb dog in my lap and sleeping in my recliner. I knew this was not a good habit to get any dog in but for peace at night I didn’t think I had much choice.
One night when he was about three months old I was so disgusted and so tired that as I was going up to bed knowing full well I’d be right back down within the hour, I saw a bed pillow on the couch and for some unknown reason I picked it up and threw it on top of Buddy. Yeah, that’s his name cuz he was my little Buddy.
I trudged on up the stairs, got in bed and promptly fell asleep. I woke up the next morning and thought, “Oh my gosh! He died during the night!” Racing down the stairs I was startled to find that he was still asleep under the pillow. End of nightly problem. (You notice I said end of NIGHTLY problem.)
He was easy to house train. I simply rewarded him with a teaspoon of vanilla ice cream whenever he did his business outside. Go out side and nothing happen, come in, NO ICE CREAM! It didn’t take him long to figure that one out. You should have seen him when he didn’t do any business and we came back inside. He’d run to the refrigerator and stand there looking up waiting and would be so puzzled when nothing happened.
Now, what I haven’t told you was the first near catastrophe. When he was barely ten weeks old I took him outside early one morning shortly after sunrise. I set him down in the back yard which led up into the woods. When he got about 20 feet from me I noticed a movement from our back deck. Glancing in that direction I saw what I first thought were two large dogs. I realized they were headed to him. In a flash it came to me that these were not dogs. They were coyotes and they had spotted breakfast. I’ve never been a screamer. I have no output when it comes to panic time. I do however, have an intake, and that’s what I started doing, drawing in one panicked breath after another and waving my arms. When the coyotes were about 10 feet from Buddy they finally saw me, swerved, and disappeared behind our garage.
After the shaking stopped I managed to pick Buddy up and carry him back in to report to Ken what had just happened. That very morning we went to town and got an Invisible Fence.
The Invisible Fence manual says it is easy to install. WRONG!!! Now maybe in some yards it’s easy, and if you don’t want to do a half acre, but Ken and I never did anything in a small, reasonable, easy way. We decided it needed to go all around our house and a good way out into the front yard. Thank God we didn’t decide to do the whole darn 10 acres!
The manual didn’t mention anything about what to do with rocks. Rocks in the path of where you wanted to dig the trench to lay the wire. Oh, not rocks. Boulders! Well, at least the size of watermelons. We dug so many of those out of our way, plus tree roots of various sizes and we were only supposed to dig three inches deep at that. Then came the actual installing of the wire. Our arrangement was Texie lay the wire in the groove we had dug, Ken cover it over and tamp it down. As I recall the work now I can’t believe that I crawled on my hands and knees all the way around that big house and huge yard. At the end of two days there wasn’t a spot on me that didn’t ache like a son-of-a-gun.
Now I felt like Buddy was safe. We put the shock collar on him which by the way, dwarfed him with that shock box that was at lease an inch and a half wide by two long. The smallest sized collar included was way too wide. So now he looked like a tiny St. Bernard with the rum keg around his neck.
Then came the training. The book says if you are consistent it would take about a week doing training several times a day. Three weeks later I was still in the training mode. Buddy wasn’t. He hated every second of it and resisted having a leash from the moment it was attached. Frequently the training session consisted of Buddy lying on his back and me dragging him around the perimeter of the yard with the occasional beeping sound emitted when he was dragged close to the underground wire. I’m sure if anyone were hiding and watching they got a big kick out of my being trained. However, after about three weeks or so Buddy got the hang of it, especially when I started the actual shock treatment.
The day finally came when we thought it was safe to let him in the front yard without the leash. He enjoyed his freedom so much. He did stop and scratch at that shock collar trying to rid himself of it but he eventually got used to it and enjoyed a good romp. But I forgot to tell you that we had to keep that sucker cranked up to German Shepherd setting because if Buddy decided he was going to go through the ‘shock treatment’ he just backed his ears, ran through, yelping the whole time. Even in German Shepherd mode, if he was outside and I went to the barn or garage, which were both outside the Invisible Fence, he would come after me no matter how much it hurt.
I still didn’t trust letting him out without my being with him because I knew the coyotes hadn’t been trained to stay OUT of the Invisible Fence.
Winter came and every night several times after dark, in the freezing cold, wind, rain, sleet, whatever Mother Nature decided to throw at me that season, Buddy and I went outside. Sometimes he was fast. Sometimes he was slow. Sometimes he climbed up on the top of my shoes and refused to get off and do his business. Too cold for him. So Ken said we should get him a doggy coat.
Two doggy coats later, from the ensuing battle of trying to get the darn things on, being bit, scratched, the piercing screams (oh, from Buddy, not from me although it was tempting) I decided to heck with a coat. He would have to gut up and take the cold.
Buddy was proving much more stubborn than I ever knew a dog could be. After I got him, when I would mention anything to anybody regarding Buddy, the dachshund, the stock answer from all people seemed to be, “Oh, didn’t you realize that a dachshund is the most stubborn breed there is?”, leaving me confessing ignorance and feeling pretty dumb not to have asked anybody that question before Buddy.
Ken suggested Doggie Training School so Buddy and I signed up. The woman teaching the class had trained some national champions of various breeds. Her plaques hung on the walls. We started….ten fulfilling weeks of Obedience training. NOT! We never missed a session. We were never late. Buddy never pee’d on the floor. I never had to use the pooper scooper. Not once! However, Buddy just refused to do whatever it was that I tried to get him to do. With the choke chain he layed over and refused to budge no matter what I did. The trainer finally, during the second session, said, “Here, let me work with him.” Hah! She thought she was so smart! She tells Buddy briskly and with real authority in her voice, “HEEL!” and she sets off at a brisk pace. Buddy stays put. Oh, I forgot. He stays put AFTER he lays down. She tries again and again with the same result. Finally, realizing that she has other ‘students’ she leaves me to my embarrassment and proceeds with the lesson.
After we ended that session, with my trying desperately to get him to obey, she asked me what he wore at home and I told her he wore a halter on a regular basis and the shock collar for outside. We abandoned the choke chain from then on and he had a manner of success with the halter on. At the end of the ten weeks Buddy got a certificate because he was the only dog that had perfect attendance. My, how proud I smiled at him! 
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Now, please understand that I could write a long book about adventures with Buddy, the dachshund. However, that is not my purpose here. I will say that Buddy has continued to have near fatal escapades. He ate several cupfuls of foam rubber that he pulled from the inside of his bed; he ate at least a cupful of DeCon that had to be removed by pumping his stomach; he as been bitten on the nose two different springs by Copperhead snakes (he rides too low to the ground and his nose is too long; wasn’t the snake’s fault) which, both times, were trips to the doggie hospital; he disappeared one whole day in coyote, Copperhead infested country only to come waltzing back up to the door like he’d been on some great vacation.
Then there was the time several years ago with the dog and cat food recall. Yup, three weeks before the recall came out Buddy got desperately sick and had to be kept for well over a week in doggie hospital. Of course the recall came just days after he got out so there could be no recourse as far as vet reimbursement. No one thought he’d make it. But he did.
About 2 years ago Buddy got very sick again. Tests were run. X-rays were taken. Buddy had a disc in his lower back that was trying to “blow”. He was not allowed to walk. Have you ever tried to keep a dachshund still? I carried him in, I carried him out, sometimes as many as 10 times a day because he would start to vomit and I knew I had to get him outside. Or because I knew he needed to go out. This went on for three weeks before he was allowed to walk by himself. I have spinal stenosis so this was incredibly bad for my back, too. But Buddy the dachshund and I somehow got through it.
At the end of the ordeal, my daughter sat me down and said, “Mom, I know you love Buddy, but you simply cannot go through this again. I won’t let you. No dog is that important. You have to realize that if this happens again he gets put to sleep.” I agreed.
About six months later he started acting funny again and I knew what was wrong. I layed on the floor with him throughout the night. I talked to myself, cried, and came to terms with having him put to sleep the next morning. I didn’t want to see him suffer like this and knew what the vet would tell me I had to do as far as tending him. Buddy and I had been through a lot together including the death of my husband but I finally became peaceful about it.
The next morning after a quick call I took him in. The doctor checked him and said he thought he could give him a shot and some pain pills and he would be fine. I asked him to put him to sleep and he said there really was no need once we got him through this. I said okay. So the routine was started over. My daughter happened to be out of the country so I got by with it. After that bout I promised myself that I would not go through that again. It was too hard on me physically. 
Can you believe it’s been a year and a half or better? Buddy acts like a puppy most days. He hops, jumps, skips, tears through the house, loves to play ball, chases squirrels in the yard. Oh yes, I know that the time will come because he’s nearly 10 years old. His muzzle is turning grey, his front feet are now white. But, did I mention that he can heel just beautifully now. We go on long walks together and he’s great on a leash.
I have recently gone through a heart wrenching personal experience. Today I received a letter that made me cry. As I was weeping Buddy was asleep in my lap. He got up, looked at me, turning his head from side to side with a concerned expression on his face. Suddenly, before I could stop him he reached up and ever so gently licked the tear that was coming down my cheek, then sat back and looked at me with love. He then let out one soft little whimper and lay down across my lap again.
Buddy, the dachshund? The stubborn, ill-mannered, rambunctious, foul-smelling dachshund, the dog that is never allowed to get close to my face and obeys with that? And yet, he truly understood my sorrow.
So, yes, Buddy was nearly Dog Gone a couple of years ago but today I am glad he’s still in my life.
Copywrite: T. Cole, Nov. 2009
