[Hey gang, it is my absolute pleasure to let you all know that we're back up to full capacity here at Who's Your Dachshund! Please welcome the latest addition to our team, bringing our total contributors back up to ten and our total dachshunds up to sixteen. SIXTEEN! Yes. It's madness...I know. But enough about me, take it away Bridget!]

I graduated from college on the East coast in May of 2008. My entire life I’ve been an Air Force brat…forced to cater to the every whim of the government’s hold on my dad and our family. After living in Arkansas, California, Texas, and lastly Maryland, I understand that I had a more fortunate military experience than some other “brats.” I never had to be dragged overseas, for example. I’m extremely close with my family, but after I graduated and had my own apartment in big, bad Baltimore City with no roommates to speak of, it got a little lonely.

Okay, it got a lot lonely. Enter Merlot. (Yes, like the wine…)Merlot is a chocolate and tan long haired miniature dachshund. I knew it was meant to be, because I never looked for her and she found me. I got an email one day from a woman who had a litter of dachshund puppies (her first, only, and last) and had one left that they’d been trying to re-home for a few weeks. Merlot was 12 weeks when she found me. She was the runt of the litter and a little fireball. She was a very fluffy wiener I liked to call Fozzy Bear (before she lost her baby fuzz). Merlot is FULL of personality. She talks to me all the time (the way dachshunds do); she’s very communicative. Sometimes, I think I can almost see her snapping her fingers at me and rolling her eyes with attitude (if dachshunds could do that).

After putting her through puppy kindergarten and conquering a plethora of new tricks, I thought I had the best little dog; she is SO eager to please me – very people-motivated. I looked at Merlot as a not only a companion, but a challenge. But I noticed she would drag all 20 of her toys out of her basket every morning unsatisfied with each, which led me to believe she needed a friend to play with. Okay, maybe I was looking for an excuse to get another wiener dog…I don’t know.

Enter Moses. He is a black and English crème long haired miniature dachshund. Moses was the fattest and fluffiest from a litter of three. He is the laziest dog I’ve ever known. He watches Merlot run laps around my apartment. If there is little to no movement involved, count Moses in. Otherwise, he prefers to watch. We call him Monster Truck because he is so broad in the shoulders and SO clumsy (he once fell nose-first into a pond of water from trying to get a drink!). He is also bigger than Merlot now, even though he is almost three months younger.

Merlot just turned 6 months old. Moses will be 14 weeks old December 5, 2008.

Merlot is the personality. Moses is the sweetheart. It’s their world. I just live in it.

You guys seem to like the itty bitty puppy pictures so I couldn't resist. This is also evidence, see how she's biting his ear? Lila is definitely their leader. Do not let the adorable puppy fat fool you.

Can I get a drum roll please? No? Bah--party spoilers. Okay, here goes.

Anyway, the winner of the adorable bathtub print is: Mel at *~reachforthestars~*

Mel, please shoot us an email so that we can let the artist know where to send the print.

Thanks for participating, everyone. Keep reading to keep up with upcoming giveaways!

Anyone who has ever spent any amount of time with a dachshund will probably report to you that they are diggers. I don't think there's any denying it. There's just something instinctual about the behaviour. After all, they were bred to hunt badgers and rabbits who make their homes underground.

Perhaps due to domestication, Tofu has taken this instinct and applied it to urban living. He'll dig non-diggable objects like pillows and blankets. What he hopes to accomplish is beyond me. Redirecting the instinct has been fairly easy though. We bought a few blankets of his own and placed them strategically around the house. With a little bit of help he's able to tuck himself away so he can nest in a comfy little ball. Sometimes, he doesn't even manage to get under the blanket but it's the digging act itself that seems to satisfy him. Or maybe he just gets so frustrated that he gives up. I'd like to think it's the former though because nobody likes a quitter.

Another odd behaviour that he picked up is one that I thought was unique to cats. Once he's done pooping outside, Tofu uses his back paws to dig up leaves and dirt to cover the mess. Is this normal? I don't even know where he learned it from. I mean, he's seen neighbourhood cats and I truly believe he thinks they're just a more nimble breed of dog. But covering his poop? I don't know. It seems like he's crossed into feline territory here. Anybody?

I was looking forward to a weekend taking care of both Calvin and his brother Tofu at my parents' place so they had room to run and do dog things. Drop-off was scheduled for Saturday around lunch so why wouldn't I come down with strepthroat on Friday? By the time I get to the house, I am so dopey and drugged up, I can barely keep myself house-trained let alone two puppies. Still, I convinced myself that they would both act like perfect lapdogs and keep me warm while watching movies hopped up on penicillin. I shudder while writing that very line because I now see how offensive a thought that must be to anyone who has actually done something like this before.

The first four hours were pretty painless. Calvin played the role of annoying little brother flawlessly by pouncing on poor, sad Tofu who sat whimpering by the front-door wondering why his parents were so cruel to leave him with the cranky, sick one. I can handle whimpering - I was doing quite a bit of it myself. My parents laughed at me, reiterating why they didn't let me have a dog as a child AS IF I DIDN'T KNOW BY NOW, and then promptly left for a benefit gala downtown. Tofu immediately excreted his own weight in bodily functions. Fair enough, he doesn't know where he is or where he's supposed to go. While cleaning it up, Calvin decides that it looked like too much fun to ignore and does the same. He should know better...so I kicked him. Hard. In the face.

Okay, no I didn't but I very much wanted to especially as these bathroom games continued until about 3:30 that morning.

Before she left, Kimberly and I had discussed that Tofu seemed to have figured out how to climb downstairs (an interesting feat for short-legged cocktail wieners) but she had never caught him in the act. After cleaning up someone's mess (it could very well have been my own at this point), I noticed Tofu had climbed up four steps of stairs. When he saw me, he flipped on his side and rolled down the stairs to the floor. Mystery solved. I checked to make sure he still moves in the way he should - inside I'm hoping the you-break-him-you-bought-him rule isn't in effect when I look up to see Calvin watching very intently with a mischievously wagging tail. Oh dear God.

I check for more accidents, wondering how a combined 18 pounds of puppy can produce so much excrement in such a short amount of time. In their eyes, I can see the conspiracy to break me. I return to the front hallway and once again give Tofu a good inspection before realizing I'm one wiener short.

"Calvin!"

Nothing.

"Caaaaaaaalvin!"

Jingle-jangle of dog tags then...nothing.

"CALVIN!"

Thump thumpety bang crash jingle jangle yelp bang bang thud thump thud.

My usually quite reserved and very breakable puppy hurled himself completely down the stairs from the top floor, hitting a solid roll half-way down before spinning onto the hardwood, cracking his head against the wall. Oh yes. House-breaking is such a terribly difficult concept to grasp....kamikaze attacks however, he's a natural. I would have felt bad about it except he immediately got up, tail wagging, and went on the floor before running off happily.

Jason immediately walks in before heading out to a party, wonders why I'm shaking with nerves, and declares himself Saint Paul, Patron Saint of Puppies since they both go and nap on his lap - likely due to the brain damage of their stunts or pure exhaustion from excessive pooping. I immediately have eighteen aneurysms.

For the rest of the weekend, if I put Calvin down in the basement, he would dash off and have to be retrieved from the top floor lest he dive downwards. Believe me, each time I had to climb two flights of stairs to get him, the idea of just letting him do it became more and more appealing.

In all fairness, the boys were great for the rest of the weekend but the good times don't make a very interesting story. I have only one piece of photo evidence of this though since I was crying and rocking back and forth in the corner.

[This piece is dedicated to dear, dear Kimberly who so graciously offered to take care of both Calvin and Theo in addition to Tofu this past weekend. May she get me back twofold for this post.]

Weekends are supposed to be wiener free, right? This one is 3/4 Wiener Free. Eric is back, and this time he writes about my parents' 1/2 pug, 1/4 chihuahua, 1/4 dachshund mess of Sterling insanity. Dog-in-law relations can be tough. Things got off to a rocky start with the two of them, but now they are inseparable when we visit. -Elizabeth

That's Sterling. He's the craziest dog I've met. I didn't like him at first. I thought he needed to walk more to get the energy out, bite less, and be easier to pickup without flailing as if it's his goal to get dropped a distance 3 times his height.

It took dog-sitting him and another dog for a week to get me to realize why I love the little bugger.

1. He makes a million love bites at your face and teaches that love can be a little more grating than a lick and that's okay.

2. He paws at you when you sit on the couch. This is one of those TDC (too damn cute) moments.

3. When you try to pick him up to put him on the couch he backs away making it a hunter-prey game where you have to wait for the moment he least suspects you to lunge forward, grab him, and place him in your lap.

4. Why does he paw to get on the couch? Because even though he's the tallest of the little dogs I know, it seems he can only get on the couch when he's in the moment -- chasing other dogs, getting a toy, or hey, one second he forgot that he doesn't jump on couches and jumps before he remembers.

5. If you fail to be the patient hunter and instead give away every tell of your incoming lunge several times over, he backs up out of your arms reach and makes a cross between a dominant growl and soulful moan reminicient of Jack reaching out to save his dad, Peter Panning (Robin Williams) from falling off the mainmast of Hook's sailing ship saying "Why can't you just do it?" from the movie Hook.

She didn't eat at all and slept through the night and she was back to her old self in no time. Yesterday we took her back to get the stitches removed and the wound has healed nicely.

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Puppydom is all so very new to me, and I don't know that we're always doing the right thing. Being able to participate and contribute to Who's Your Dachshund has really helped me understand my puppies more. So thanks to all you guys who comment, and write posts that I can relate to!