This is little Daisy, a miniature Dachshund who arrived today from a rescue group in the Salt Lake City area. They had pulled her from the City of Ogden shelter, where she had been surrendered, adopted twice and brought back each time. At that point they considered her ‘unadoptable.’ Daisy has a spinal problem which affects her hind legs, so she kind of waddles like a duck, lists to one side at times, and occasionally has her back legs go out from under her. As a result of the neurological issue, she also has some incontinence. (That’s why linoleum was invented, right?)
In fact, Daisy has pretty much the same set of conditions as one of our other mini-Doxies, Bailey, who came to us earlier this year from a court case in Great Falls, Montana. Bailey is more compromised, though, and his spine is visibly more curved and his back legs bounce when he’s standing still. He also has some incontinence, too. Given the similarities, we thought Daisy would be a wonderful girlfriend for Bailey. She had other ideas.
I picked up Daisy at the Missoula airport at 1 p.m. today (it cost only $165 to fly her from Salt Lake City, cheaper than driving — not to mention two days on the road!) and then continued running errands in town. By the time Daisy and I got back to the ranch about 5 p.m., she had already decided I was her man. Uh oh.
Maybe it was listening to George Strait’s greatest hits together on the ride home, or the fact that I fed her fresh oatmeal cookies from the Good Food Store in Missoula. Who knows? But I arrived home a marked man.
All evening she’s followed me everywhere, from one room to the other. I get up, she gets up. I get out of her line of sight, she moves so she can see me. She insists on sitting on my lap whenever I’m sitting down, and at dinner she ended up sitting on a chair at the table. (Okay, so I helped her get up there, but it beat having her on my lap while I ate.) As I write this, she’s asleep in my office next to me. I told her I can’t type with a Dachshund in my lap.
Bailey was quite interested in the new chick — "hey, someone my size!" — but alas, Daisy paid him no attention at all. Worse, whenever he’d come over to visit with her, she’d take off. Daisy’s totally dissing the poor guy. This was not how I envisioned Doxie love turning out.
The funniest thing was when I got the camera out to take her photo tonight, Daisy became a ham … which is what you see in this photo. She was just a goof, hopping around on that bed, making odd noises, stretching out and then doing a little jump to finish it off. After a pause, she grabbed the blanket with her mouth and started flinging it back and forth. I finally got her settled down, and with help from Alayne off-camera getting her attention, I was able to take the first photo you see above.
Some astute readers of this blog have noticed that the short-legs are beginning to take over the ranch. Uh oh indeed.
(Click on photo for larger image.)
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