Richard & Rooster: A Love Letter to My Weenie Dogs

My husband and I have two mini dachshunds. Their names are Richard and Rooster.

Yes, we did that on purpose.

It was my husband’s idea, which is something I say both to give credit where it’s due and to maintain a thin layer of plausible deniability at the park.

Richard is almost ten years old. He is a lap dog and a seasoned athlete, which sounds like a contradiction until you’ve watched a twelve-pound tube of muscle and ego lead you up a twelve-mile trail without breaking a sweat. He does physical therapy. He takes joint supplements. He is, by any reasonable measure, in better shape than I am.

Once, on one of said hikes, I nearly slipped off an icy log bridge and into a river. Richard was in front of me, blissfully unaware of the chaos unfolding behind him. In the split second I was windmilling my arms over moving water, my only thought was: if I go in, I will die before I let go of this leash, and my last words will be “HE EATS PURINA PRO PLAN” screamed at my friends from the current.

He is worth it. He is always worth it.

Rooster is younger, floppier-eared, and operates on a frequency the rest of us cannot access. She wakes up between 5:30 and 6 a.m. every single morning with the energy of someone who just discovered caffeine. She gets zoomies. She rams into Richard like a tiny, affectionate freight train. She was recently invited to a tea party and attended with complete dignity.

My mother once asked if I thought they were human babies.

I do not. They are dogs. They are also babies, always, in the way that some creatures just never stop being babies no matter how old they get or how many supplements they take.

They are, at their core, creatures of warmth. Dachshunds were bred to burrow, and mine have taken this ancestral calling seriously. There is no blanket safe from them. No lap unoccupied. No cold foot left unwarmed in the night.

We didn’t mean to end up with a nearly matching pair. We absolutely meant to give them those names.

Some decisions you just don’t second-guess.