As you might know from reading Miss Doxie, dachshunds are contagious.  In fact, if Miss Doxie lived a little further south in Georgia and did not have so many teeth, I might think she was a distant in-law.

It started with Cinnamon, a little wiener dog some friend foisted upon Tom while he was still living in the same town as his parents.  I cannot remember the specifics of this foisting and Tom is in Oklahoma counting shit in a freezer (this pays well - evidently many people cannot count.  So, stay in school!  At least through 3rd grade!) so he is not available for clarification.  I am pretty sure it involved the friend going to drown/abandon/let loose the dog because this is how Tom gets all of his animals - if you listened to him, you’d think he never really wanted pets but he has just always been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Like how you have traffic accidents?  He has pets.

Cinnamon lived in a pen outside his house and his father, also Tom, took a liking to her (have I ever mentioned that Tom is actually Tom Something Something the FOURTH?  Which FOURTH = you better sure as hell have kids - we have kept this jig up too long for you to fuck it up. He could not have married a woman more perfect for him and less perfect for his family.  But here we are).

Cinnamon also took a liking to Tom 3, to the point she’d just start escaping the pen and running down to their house.  When she didn’t, he would stop by and pick her up on his way to the fields for work.  After a few weeks of this, it became evident that Cinnamon had a new owner.

Then Tom got engaged, then his fiancé shot at him (guess what was included in our wedding vows?), then he moved to Alaska for a year.

When he came back, his parents decided he needed something waiting for him at home to tie him down a bit.  Since they could not afford a non-lethal-weapon-toting fiancé, they got him a dachshund, Busch.

From there, I get a bit hazy on the chronology.  His cousin got Luke, who ended up with his other cousin.  His aunt and uncle also got a dachshund.  And second to last, Luke’s owner decided he needed a playmate and Reilly came into our lives.

That’s 5 dachshunds in the family.

As you know, Busch passed away almost a year ago.  He attacked a timber rattlesnake and was gone in less than 20 minutes.  Funny enough, before he died I had been campaigning for Lady to come stay with us.  I wanted a quieter, more sedate, less needy dog.  Basically, I wanted a cat that woofed.  But after Busch was gone, I immediately felt the loss of character in our house and asked several times if we could get another dachshund.

(From a rescue facility of course.  If you are interested in owning a purebred, please look into your local rescue facilities.)

Tom always said no.  Another dachshund would remind him too much of Busch.

Busch was no spring chicken.  This meant of course that Cinnamon was even less springier and chickenier.  And a few weeks ago she had to be put to sleep.  While I was sorry to see her go, I know she had been in pain and I’m happy it’s been relieved.  I also immediately started scheming on how to get his parents to take the 3 feral kittens that had been living in my office - trapped off the road to the sanctuary, we’d had them spayed/vaccinated/etc. but could not adopt them out until they got a bit more accustomed to people.

I evidently did not scheme quick enough.  My mother-in-law sent me this picture yesterday.

Meet Buddy.  (I am also dumbfounded as to why I needed so much of my father-in-law’s crotch in a picture, but whatever…)

I forwarded it to Tom, who then got all sloppy and sentimental and drunk on the phone and professed his desire to have another little one of his own.

As long as he’s talking wiener dogs and not babies, I guess I’m good.