When my middle kid went to college, I kept his Dachshund named Wiener. I asked him if he’d miss his dog at UCLA, and he said, “They have squirrels there, Mom.”
As it turned out, Wiener thought he was a squirrel. Maybe not so much in the big marriage house, but when he got to the much smaller divorce house, his squirrel tendencies kicked in.
My youngest was in high school and she hid her Halloween candy in a pillowcase, stuffed between her bed and the wall of her tiny new bedroom. It was to keep me from raiding her candy, but since it was floor level, one short dog was able to reach it.
I started to find candy wrappers in the back yard and sometimes wrappers with the candy still inside. Wiener took to eating some of it and burying some of it for later. It’s a wonder the chocolate didn’t kill him (probably not real chocolate in those Halloween treats).
My daughter didn’t figure it out because she was more of a salt person — she just didn’t want me to get her candy which she never ate or looked at. But I digress.
Once I moved the cached candy, Wiener turned to tiny green apples that came off the apple tree prematurely. He would carry them, one at a time, to various locations in the back yard, then dig a hole and bury them. I found little apples all summer long. It was fun to watch the hard-working German as he spent his days preparing for rough times ahead.
When those rough times arrived, it wasn’t a lack of food that got Wiener but old age and stiff muscles. He couldn’t walk as fast anymore. He lost some of his vision and had trouble finding his way back into the house. Back then, I had a doggie door in the hall bathroom. He needed to find the plastic dog steps that took him up two feet to the wooden bench that sat under the dog door, since it was two feet off the ground. I found him one day, under the bench, barking to get back inside.
I went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of rectangular concrete pavers in the garden section, brought them home, and made a path from beneath the bench, around a bush and then to the dog steps. I put little pieces of dog treats along the pavers, set Wiener down at the start and let him follow the treats all the way to the steps and up to the bench. He soon caught on that he needed to follow the rough pavers to get back in the house.
Wiener stopped barking at the mailman truck and soon spent his days sitting in the sun, either next to a sunny window or outside on the bench on the south side of the house. Whenever I called him and he didn’t come, I’d go down the hall, lift the flap to the dog door and find him sitting outside.
When he started to pee inside the house, I kept him locked in the hall bath behind a gate, but he could still get outside when he wanted to.
Then Sis moved in with me, and Wiener went to live with my ex. He made it almost 19 years. That’s 131 in dog years, older than any squirrel.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 