Walter

Walter Weiner
1992-2008

We found him as a puppy when my husband (then boyfriend) was out driving around and saw him being walked. He brought me to see him and of course we had to get him. Who wouldn't want a dachshund puppy? They're incredibly soft and silky and a little extra wrinkly. Walter was brown, long and happy. Plus he had this funny little bent tail, like the very end had been folded over crooked and stuck like that. That crooked little end of the tail got caught in the blinds one year and came right off.
He was named Walter after Walter Payton. When we got our 2nd dog we of course named her Payton. What relevance does her name have now, without him? He had many nicknames: snausage dog, brown guy, little guy, the thuringer, crabby old man, Walt.
He lived off and on between us. At the house in Alpine Village he pooped behind the couch, ate a wallets and shoes and CDs, and drank a screwdriver late one night. He awoke in the morning smelling quite sour.
He lived with my mom, temporarily, when we both moved away. He then moved in with me when I got an apartment in college. Hubby (still boyfriend) would come to visit us on the weekends. We'd go for walks and visit a field nearby where we'd unleash him and let him run free, as all weiner dogs should. I brought him to friends houses where he became a star and the center of attention.
He loved (or really hated) squeaky toys, removing squeaker in record time with each. Old socks turned in to tug-of-war battles that made us laugh at his herka-jerka pull. We'd play keep away like the one night he ran until he puked.
He insisted on sleeping in the bed with us. Torturing us with whines and barks if we didn't let him. Like a good weiner dog he burrowed under blankets to sleep in hot, stale air (how do they do that?). He hated his cage.
We joked that when it came to food he had to have his "fair share" and that whatever portion we gave him it was never the one he really wanted. I blamed the rabbits until I discovered it was he who ate my young tomato plants. We used to say he'd eat anything as long as it came off the kitchen counter. We experimented. The only things he didn't eat were cherry stems and orange peels. On Friday, his last day, he ate fresh cherry tomatoes from the plant on the deck fed out of my hand. Then he got a $5 Angus tenderloin bought and grilled just for him.
He famously bit everyone. Except my husband - a fact he is quite proud of and proves that indeed, Walter did love him best. He bit our neighbor Diana in Illinois and tried to bite the English sheepdog who lived next door. That one bit back and made a quarter size hole in his side that required stitches. He even bit me many times. New Year's Eve he bit my thumb and caused a bruise under the nail that took almost 6 months to grow out. He had jaws of steel.
He was a character and a personality unto his own. Whether they loved him, hated him or tolerated him, it seemed at least that everyone knew him.
We'll miss you, little buddy.