Wiener Wednesday...2013 North Carolina Wiener Roast

The Darlings were raring to go when we woke them up for the  wiener roast Saturday morning. This was our fourth straight year attending and I swear they acted as if they knew exactly what was going down. Poor Lucky had no clue what he was in for but he was excited simply because they were excited.

It is held at the Castle McCulloch in Jamestown which is about an hour and forty-five minute drive for us. I thought we'd made a huge mistake by taking Lucky along in the beginning because as soon as we got out of the car and he saw the other Dachsies and friends getting out of the car next to us, he was beside himself with excitement and immediately began showing his arse in a big way. This prompted the Darlings to then show their little arses as well, and so the three of them proceeded to have an all-out barking match with the stranger dogs.

None of them are aggressive but were all beyond ready to get to the entrance and into the event asap and had no patience whatsoever for our attempts to put a harness on Lucky. I may have uttered a couple (or several) four letter words under my breath but this was clearly some sort of Rubik's cube trick harness that would not, for the love of all that is holy, stay on right. So we finally gave in, put the leash on his collar, held our breath that he wouldn't come out of it and made our way (very ungracefully) toward the gate. 

I, of course, had to find a bathroom right away (because I have determined that my bladder is roughly the size of a pea) and when I came out Lucky was sporting a new fire hydrant harness that Charlie informed me we needed to pay the nice lady for. And since Brisco's was looking a little dingy, he thought he had to have a new one too.

I have concluded that taking them to this event is pretty much the dog world equivalent of taking toddlers to Disney World. 

They all settled down once we were in and wasted no time introducing themselves. In other words, there was a whole lot of butt-sniffing going on and Mr. Happy-go-lucky Lucky got way more than his fair share of flashing teeth and nips at the nose but  he remained a gentleman, never once complaining or nipping back.

I made the discovery, about 15 minutes after our arrival, that I had gone off and left my SD card for the camera in my computer. I was all kinds of unhappy about that but what are you gonna do?

iPhone to the rescue.

Let the butt-sniffin' begin...

Charlene (Li'l Bit) is a bit more shy than the boys and therefore, requested demanded to be toted around all day. 

Dracen kept disappearing into the castle to check on his bids at the silent auction while the rest of us waited around outside. He likes to be sneaky independent. 

 (Dracen "accidentally" allowed Brisco (Big Boy) to take a dip in that murky water shortly after we arrived. 

So much for that clean new harness)

Dracen ended up winning the bid on this all-things-Dachshund basket which he proudly presented to me as a Mother's Day gift...(Aww)

The wiener races are always held at the end of the day, after they're all exhausted and ready to go home. I entered both of them this time and here they are (tuckered out) just minutes before the races began...

I had entered Brisco two of the previous three years and both times he refused to run. This year I went ahead and entered him one more time and decided to give Charlene her shot at it this year too. They were in separate weight classes, miniature and tweenie.

Charlene was up first. 

Dracen got in place with her at the start line and I headed around to the finish line to catch her. Here's how she did...

Bless her sweet little wiener heart.

I pretty much expected Brisco's to go much the way it went the other years but he surprised me this year. I won't go so far as to say he ran it to win it but he did quick trot it all the way to the finish line this time. I was so proud of my boy.

(And I have made numerous attempts at uploading his race video but the stars are not lining up right and I have now reached my limit with the patience thing so it's just not going to happen.)

Instead here's a shot of the look he gave me afterward...

I took that as a please-can-we-go-home-now-I'm-worn-slap-out kind of look so we packed everybody up and headed toward home... 

Where they all three slept for approximately 19 hours.