The long, low hound gang

As I hinted in my last post, there is now a new certain someone special in my life who happens to come along with a great dog - a beagle-basset mix named Toby. When I had J. over for dinner a couple of weeks ago, it was great to see how great he got along with Quintin and Jewel and how much they liked him. I've since had the opportunity to hang out with Toby a few times and he is really sweet - unbelievably he never barks! My dogs, on the other hand, can be barkaholics and are not exactly known for their fondness of other canines (just remember how they were when I rescued the boxer back in November). I sometimes call them little breedists, but they have even lashed out at other dachshunds for no reason at all. The thought of a meeting between our dogs terrified me - but how is a relationship supposed to work if we can't bring our dogs together? Obviously this is a hurdle that has to be overcome, so today we took our first step towards facing this challenge (4 miles worth of steps to be exact).

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about today's canine encounter. We decided to meet at a local walking path around a lake and walk our dogs together. Usually when my dogs encounter other dogs on our usual walks they go nuts, barking aggressively at any canine they see. I tried to put my negative thoughts behind me - in particular that image in the back of my head of Quintin attacking Toby - and focused on positive energy. When our dogs first met my two barked a bit, but with some mild correction were eventually quite well behaved. At Quintin's first attempt to lunge at Toby, J. promptly scolded Quintin and made sure he knew that such behavior was unacceptable. Before anything else could happen, we set off on our walk around the lake. J. has done such a great job with Toby and has clearly taken Cesar Milan's tips to heart; J.'s calmness and composure seemed to be positively transferred to my dogs. Of course it also helped that he had come prepared with plenty of reward treats! It didn't take too long before all three of our dogs were walking together as a gang of long, low hounds. Quintin only acted up a couple of times, but the correction seemed to work. What was even more amazing was that my dogs not only walked together with Toby (who often took the lead), but that they were even quite calm as we passed other dogs of all shapes and sizes. In fact, as I was leaving the park I ran into my former dog trainer who was impressed to see how well my dogs behaved around other dogs. Definitely confirmation that something is going right!

While there is certainly a long way to go, I think we are headed in the right direction. Hopefully the day when all three dogs can calmly hang out together in the same room isn't too far away!

(I didn't manage to get a picture of the three hounds today, but I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities.)

Getting back to normal

Of course, Jewel's favorite car was the one with the
drive-in attachment! Shown with my mom.

It's been an exhausting past couple of days thanks to Jewel's little ordeal. I stayed at my parents' house until this morning, when I decided to come back home and get on with things. However, once I got home and saw my vitamins on the counter, I realized that something else had been in that bag of pills that Jewel had eaten. It wasn't just Omega 3-6-9 and L-Carnitine, there had also been 4x 100 mg 5-HTP pills. I immediately googled 5-HTP and dogs and found this: 5-HTP Toxicosis in Dogs. That was what was responsible for the neurological problems and temporary blindness. 400 mg was half the minimum fatal dose for a dog of her size. I called animal poison control to update the case as well as the vet to let them know in case there was anything else that needed to be done. They said that since she was doing better to just keep an eye on her, but not to worry. She's one lucky dog. Thanks to everyone who had her in their thoughts and was praying for her. Today she was 100% back to herself so my mom and I took both dogs to the Harvest Festival in my little town where we strolled around the farmers' market and looked at the antique cars. I took lots of pictures of the cars for my best twin friends in Berlin, who are both fantastic photographers and avid fans of old cars.

Baby spinach salad with sauteed shiitake mushrooms,
onion and cherry tomatoes, local cucumbers, NC mountain
apple (super sweet), raisins, pecans,
truffle Crema di Balsamico and olive oil.

Jewel woke me up at 2 AM last night to go outside and I never really managed to get a good night's rest after that. Needless to say I've been tired today. Took a 2 hour nap around 5, then made Watermelon Salsa (will post separately) and a delicious salad featuring fresh apples and shiitake mushrooms for dinner. I have a good bit of work left to do this weekend, but think I'll be going to bed early tonight. The dogs have already plopped down in their beds since the Harvest Festival wore them out. They got plenty of attention with lots of people wanting to pet them. I can't even count how many times I heard people of all ages say "Ohhhhh cute, wiener dogs!" They definitely always prove to be the best little attention magnets (except when barking at other dogs!). Bedtime is calling! Goodnight!

15 minutes at 5:30 a.m.

My alarm clocks: Quintin (red) and Jewel (black)
Photo by: Claudia Seydel

My little alarm clocks have done it again - that's right plural, but these bark and don't ring. Almost like clockwork, Quintin and Jewel, my two miniature dachshunds, wake me up every day, ready to go outside and have their breakfast. They are oblivious to time changes like daylight savings time, so in a few weeks when everyone else gets an extra hour of sleep, they will probably still get me up at what would then be 4:30 a.m. Usually once they've been outside and eaten we all get back into bed and cuddle. I make them sleep downstairs at night, but for napping and cuddling they're allowed in my bed.

Starting the 15 minutes of writing yesterday really did get my mind cranked up and ideas spinning - exactly as I had hoped it would. In fact it was hard not to give into the temptation to write even more later in the day, but I wanted to at least try to stick to the theme of 15 minutes a day on Day 1 - otherwise how credible would I be. Apparently as many as 37 people even viewed the blog (I love the stats feature on here), but left no comments. I can just imagine that my rant on requirements in a partner could bother people - my luck will be that I'll end up falling in love with someone who is completely different from anything I ever imagined. That might actually be nice.

To loosely quote my brother, all you really need is to find someone who will put up with you and accept you even when you fart! If you knew my brother, this actually would make sense - his farts are certainly something not everyone can put up with, especially given the fact that he loves to draw attention to them and hold conversations about them. But even he has found someone who will "put up with him" and they've been together for about 5 years. If it were only as simple as finding someone to accept me when I fart!

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a free live performance of the NC Symphony at the downtown amphitheater. It was a beautiful night with the performance accompanied by the sunset. I took along my little idea notebook and tried to jot some things down in a different setting. Eventually I hope to write about some of the ideas here.

It's about time to crawl back to bed for my "morning nap" with the puppies. Since I've been doing a bit more thinking in these 15 minutes than writing, I might just have to write another post later on today.

Good morning and sweet dreams!