Dog behavior, and other anomolies.

My husband and I, tho we do not have children (yet!) are recent pet owners.  As of approximately 3 1/2 months ago, we adopted and accepted into our home a miniature longhaired dachshund.  I myself grew up with pets, mostly dogs, never more than one at a time, and sometimes not even until the dog lived out his natural lifespan.  I recall having a cat named Tiger, who was much fun and very sweet.  I don't remember tiger ever having been a kitten, and I sure don't remember Tiger dying, so from whence he came and to where he up-and-gone to, I have no idea.   And clearly, I am afraid to know the truth, else I would have asked and easily recieved an answer from my obliging parents.  I would rather continue believing that, tho I know the truth now about what can happen with pets, Tiger in particular just came to and fro from the ether, magically.  I also remember a crazy kitten name Muffin, given to me as a gift from mom.  She was grey and fuzzy, and often got into trouble.  I recall not being able to find her on a couple of occassions, and when we found her some time after looking, she would be in the back of a drawer in a bureau that happened to be in front of the heater (she climbed up the open back of the drawers and into them.) or up the window-side of the curtains and up near the ceiling with her claws dug into mom's pink polished cotton drapes hanging on for dear life.  She was wacky and fast and full of claws and sharp teeth, and I remember picking her up from the farm where she was born.  And yes, she really WAS born on a lovely farm, not just those 'fake' farms that parents make up when they tell you that your old pet when to live on a farm so they could run free and frolic.  I also remember bringing her BACK to the farm when her over-exuberance proved too much for my brother and parents to handle.  I had probably lost a lot of blood at that point, but I was lucid enough to remember summoning the strength to cry and wail all the way home, nomatter how much they told me should would love to be back home again with her mommy cat and sibling kittens.  We had a rabbit named Snuffy who grew to enourmous proportions in a cage in our basement, and shit out metric tons of taconite pellet turds that my poor brother had to contend with.  He was cute and soft, but a whole lotta rabbit.  My brother also had hermit crabs at one point, some kind of lizards, and a few genuinely interesing ecosystem-type arrangements.  Even then, his bookiness would inspire him to re-create mini bio aquariums in his room, complete with aquatic plants, crustaceans, fishes, algae, mayfly nymphs, mosquito larvae, the works!  (poor, brave mom.)  We had store-bought fish a few times, with the usual results.  And we had dogs. 

It is amazing to me, I must point out, that thru that menagerie of animals listed above, mom still managed to keep an impeccably clean and gorgeous home.  Never a whiff of animal, fish, fowl or otherwise, was present, and she was vigilant about letting us experience these additions to the household without compromising our health, neatness, or random animal infections.  No child of hers was going to go to school with turtle-bourne salmonella on their crisp cottons!  I think I just needed to point that out, as I review the list above, I picture a completely gross house and some kids whose clothes smell funky.  Totally, not us.  And if you've ever met my mom or seen her house, you already know that. 

Anwhow, fast-forward thru the australian terrier terror who chewed up my face and the german shorthair pointer who chewed halfway thru one of the main supportive beams to our house and nearly killed us all, and we get to the era of dog triumph.  We enter the weinie epoch, wherein I still reside, have found great joy, and have now inducted my spouse into.  My cousins and my aunt were the first to get a dachsie, when they went to a breeder to get a pomeranian.  The breeder specialised in both breeds, they caught their first glimpse ever of a dachsie puppy, and were totally sold that minute.  I was quite young at that time, and recently dogless, and flipped over their cute new addition.  By Christmastime, we too had one, and between myself, my cousin, my aunt, and my mom, we have had 7 dachsies now and loved them all like family.  So it should come as no surprise that when we finally got our home (no more no-pet apartments for us!) that we would get a dog and that it would be a weinie.  And more importantly even, that since my husband had never had a pet before and adored dogs anyway, it was time that he experience the joy for himself.  The completely rewarding feeling of coming home to a grateful and gleeful face day after day, the unconditional love, the companionship, the humor, all of it. 

And then we got..... her.  The blonde menace, as she is affectionately called by me.  Saffron.  The cutest and most horrific anomoly since the dawn of weiner creation.  She is incredibly bad and heart achingly good in the same actions.  She is amazingly agile one moment, and Jerry Lewis the next.  She tries to sleep on my mouth.  MY.  MOUTH.  I'm not sure if she is really smart or completely mentally incompetent, but I am daily amazed and amused.  I am most certainly confused by most of what she does, and what she is thinking, but admittedly, a lot of her actions are reminiscent of the breed.  I have a question tho... one that plagues me night and day that I still ponder over.  Saffy does this thing.... only to those she really adores.  Namely, me and hubby, and mom and dad.  And Lord help me, if someone can explain it to me, I will be eternally grateful to you.  She likes to get as close to my face as possible, decide that she needs to suddenly 'greet' me with oodles of joy, bites my nose frantically (hard!  she gets her bottom canines hooked up INTO my nostrils!  It's HORRIFYING.) and yelp and cry and scream happy dog screams.  It is the weirdest thing I have ever known a dog to do.  I'm quite sure she loves me, and probably really likes doing this.  She only does it when she's happy.  But God help me if I understand the logic behind it.

~Sarah