A Dachshund Custody Battle: 'We can't live without him', say Bailey's Humans

Nothing like a little hot drama to spice up your week.  Meet Gary and Moira Rowlinson who hail from Offerton, Derbyshire, UK.  They are holding a picture of their beloved smooth chocolate 'Bailey,' who they gave to family friend Steven Spencer, after Bailey bit their 2-year-old granddaughter.  They realized their mistake the next day and asked for Bailey back, but Mr. Spencer refused.  Now it's going to the courts.  Excerpt from The Daily Mail:

Now, in a bizarre and bitter tug-of-love custody battle, the fate of Bailey will be settled by a judge at Stockport County Court on June 2 after Mr Rowlinson decided to take legal action to get his pet back.

Mr Rowlinson, a joiner from Offerton, said: 'Bailey is a great dog. We can't live without him. We fell in love with him the moment we saw him. Bailey is one of the family. We'd be devastated if we didn't get him back.

'Normally, he is very playful but he is very protective of my wife and when my granddaughter came running up to her Bailey didn't realise what she was doing and bit her. We are distraught.'
Mr Rowlinson, who will represent himself in court, submitted an application to the courts under the Return of Goods Act.
He has even offered to fork out more than the £700 he originally paid for Bailey just to get him back.
Mrs Rowlinson, 56, said: 'Our children have grown up so Bailey is like a child to us.'
Mr Spencer, of Heaton Chapel, will be represented by a solicitor at the hearing. He declined to comment.

Read all about it The Daily Mail.

Dachshund Hot Mess: Rage Over Doggie Doo Doo

If you love hot drama, you'll love this story.  Us?  Not so much - the only party hurt here is the Dachshund.  Meet Long Island, New Yorker Barbara Bottiglieri with her cute little black and tan smooth, 'Coco.'  Ms. Bottiglieri was walking Coco on Saturday when her neighbor Jaime Sanchez, who lives across the street, warned her to not let her dog doody on his grass, or he would sic his 50 pound dog on both of them.  Excerpt from the New York Daily News:

"She's constantly letting her dog defecate and urinate on our property," said Sanchez's wife, Antoinette, noting that there's been a bitter feud between the neighbors for two years over parking on the street.

But when Bottiglieri threatened to call police, Sanchez walked up to the woman, snatched the leash and flung the pup 6 feet in the air - and 10 feet into the middle of the street, cops said.

The landing caused injuries to the dog's tail and ruptured stitches on her belly from being spayed recently, cops and neighbors said.

Cops soon arrived and cuffed Sanchez. He was charged with torturing animals and reckless endangerment to property.

"I'm horrified by it," said a neighbor. "You're not a man when you confront a woman and toss a dog into the air."

Sanchez's frustrated wife said Bottiglieri let the injured pup pee on her lawn just hours later.

"I can't believe she had the audacity to do this," she said.

Meanwhile, in a follow-up article in the New York Daily News:

The Long Island woman whose mini-wiener dog was hurled into the street by a lawn-defending neighbor claims he must have been suffering from a bad case of dog-poo paranoia.

Barbara Bottiglieri said she doesn't let her miniature dachshund, Coco, poop on anyone's lawn - despite Jaime Sanchez's claim her pooch previously did just that.

"He said, 'Hey, you! I don't want your dog walking on my property!'" Bottiglieri recalled. "I said, 'What are you talking about? I have manners; my dog didn't do anything on your property.'"

She said she tried to reason with Sanchez, 56, but her Franklin Square neighbor threatened to unleash his German shepherd-sized mutt on her.

"I guess because he wasn't getting anywhere with me - I was being polite - he took it out on the dog," Bottiglieri, 54, said.

"He flung her into the air," she said. "That vision will stick in my head for the rest of my life."

CBS2 New York interviewed some neighbors who supported Mr. Sanchez: 

At least two neighbors said that Bottiglieri has been told before by many in the area to keep Coco off their lawns.

“The dog does go all over the place,” one woman said. “She walks the dog on our property, on the grass and he’s [Sanchez] not the bad guy here.”

“The woman was told not to walk the dog in front of a lot of the houses in the neighborhood,” one man said. “The woman walks the dog and she actually smokes a cigarette and lets the dog do whatever it wants.”

The perp

Moral of the story:  Don't be a crazy jerk and take out your anger on a defenseless little dog.  And pick up your dog's doody.  We'll file this one under Hot Mess.

Dachshunds: Delivering Chaos Wherever We Go

Scouts Learn About Pets - article in its entirety via The Cross Timbers Gazette out of Flower Mound, Texas:

The Nosey Dog Pet Spa & Boutique in Flower Mound recently hosted Girl Scout Troop 761 and their Troop Leaders Mark and Kay Charles on to help them earn their Pet Care Badge.

During the two-hour session, the scouts learned about pet responsibility and the cost of owning pets from Patricia Debarros-Kari, owner of The Nosey Dog.

Charry Lackey, owner of The Pet Depot – Pet Sitting & Dog Walking Service – taught the Girl Scouts how to keep their pets healthy and how to communicate with them by learning different behavior reactions.

The Girl Scouts then had the opportunity to get some “hands on” training by bathing four dogs: Allie, a beautiful Black lab; Broden, a handsome Wheaten Terrier; and Henry and Geoffrey, two very naughty Mini Dachshunds.

Well - whatever we did, we'll wear that badge with pride, thank you very much!  Looks like we didn't even make the photo-op.

Pilfered Pooch Home, Human Still Doggone Mad

'Princess Grace,' the unfortunate pawn in a vulgar tale

If you like drama, you'll love this!  The story is so twisted and insane, we can't even excerpt it for fear of leaving out a tatty detail, so we present it in its entirety via The Eagle Tribune, by Cara Hogan.  Has the whole world gone crazy?

HAMPSTEAD, New Hampshire, December 4 — Princess Grace the dachshund is safe at home, but her owner is still barking mad she was stolen.
Carol Cascadden, 61, admits she recently stole the dog from neighbor Patricia Reardon to upset her, and it worked. Reardon said she couldn't sleep for the 17 days her dog was missing.
"I came home one day and said, 'Something is missing, Gracie's missing,"' Reardon said. "Who would do that? I called friends and said, 'You didn't take Gracie did you?' I was a wreck the whole time."
Police arrested Cascadden on a burglary charge last week after finding the dog at the woman's Main Street home. She was released on $2,500 personal recognizance bail and is to be arraigned Jan. 24 in Plaistow District Court.
Cascadden told The Eagle-Tribune she took the dog because Reardon owed her $487. But Reardon said she doesn't owe Cascadden a cent.
Reardon said she met Cascadden at a local farmstand earlier this year and Cascadden started stopping by her Island Pond Road home uninvited and unannounced.
"She would appear in my house when I wasn't home to chat," Reardon said. "She would just walk right in. I used to keep my door unlocked, but not anymore."
Reardon said Cascadden would talk for a long time and she would try to think of a polite way to ask her to leave. During one visit, Cascadden offered to reupholster two old chairs.
"I never asked her to do anything," Reardon said. "Then one day, my chairs disappeared."
Reardon said she wasn't too upset since the chairs were old and not worth much.
"Later, she showed up and said, 'Here are your chairs," Reardon said. "Then she hands me a bill for almost $500. I thought it was a joke. I would have thrown the chair away before I paid $500 for them."
Reardon pointed to the two chairs, both wood with small seat cushions Cascadden re-covered with a multicolored pattern.
Reardon said the real issue wasn't the chairs at all, or even the money. Cascadden had asked to have her other dachshund that she gave away, but Reardon refused.
"She could have just taken the chairs, but took my dog," Reardon said. "It's because she wanted one of my dogs. These dogs are expensive."
When Reardon came home Nov. 9 and realized Princess Grace was gone, along with the large dog crate, she immediately suspected Cascadden.
"I realized it must be her, who else would it be? She wanted one of my dogs and was telling people around town I owed her money," Reardon said.
She reported her missing dog to police, who found it at Cascadden's home unharmed.
Reardon said police returned Princess Grace, who was miserable after being stuck in her crate for days.
Cascadden regrets taking the dog. She said it was humiliating when police took her fingerprints and snapped mug shots.
"It was one of the stupidest things I've done in my life, I admit," she said. "I was completely sober and I took her damn dog."
Cascadden said Princess Grace is "a cute dog, but it has fleas."
Reardon said she is happy to have her dog back, but was really upset about Cascadden's comment.
"My dog doesn't have fleas," she said.


We'll file this one under Hot Mess.

News From the Motherland: "Terrorist" Dachshund Disrupts Morning Rush Hour

What appears to be a dapple black and tan or chocolate longhair confounded commuters and local authorities yesterday morning in Schalksmühle, Germany.  A driver was waiting at a railroad crossing at 6:40 in the morning when the Dachshund dashed under his car and refused to come out.  All attempts to get the frightened dog out from under the car failed, as he snapped and snarled at his helpers.  The police were called in, who also failed at getting him out - until he changed his mind and ran under the police car instead, taking residence in the wheel well, as seen above.  Animal Control was finally called in, who were able to place him in a crate thanks to the thick gloves they were wearing.  All told, the little "terrorist" held up traffic for nearly two hours.  He is now waiting for his humans to pick him up at a local shelter.  Source.

We couldn't make this stuff up if we tried.

Blind Dachshund Wanders Into Traffic; Causes Wreck; Reunited With Humans

Thankfully, neither the driver nor the Dachshund were injured in Liberty, Missouri, when a blind Dachshund found its way into traffic, causing the driver to smash into a curb.  KansasCity.com reports:

There are happy endings.
Police reunited a blind dachshund with its owners this afternoon, about 14 hours after it meandered into traffic causing a wreck.
Police were able to track down the owners through the dog’s rabies vaccination tag. It took a while to reach the owners because they were out looking for the lost dog.
The owners didn’t know the dog had gotten away. It wandered into the street about 10:45 p.m. Monday near Sumac Drive and Claywoods Parkway in Liberty.
A driver in what is believed to be a 1995 Toyota saw the dog, swerved to miss it and ended up striking a curb, said Sgt. Matt Kellogg, a police spokesman. The driver was not injured, but her car was not drivable after the crash.
An officer took the dog and brought it to animal control.

One commenter at KansasCity.com wonders: 

Did the reporters at the KC Star take a correspondence course in journalism? .... the owners were out looking for a dog they didn't know was missing.....

File this under Hot Mess.

Celebrity Dachshund Watch: Gary Coleman and Wife to Breed Dachshunds

"What'choo talkin' 'bout, Willis?"  We wish we were making this up, but the story originates from The National Enquirer, so it must be true.  Actor Gary Coleman, best known for his role as Arnold Jackson in the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes is back with his wife Shannon Price, and they've bought a Dachshund puppy to celebrate.  Excerpt from aceshowbiz:

A source tells the National Enquirer, "They've never been happier and all their friends are hoping their love will stick this time."

The couple is now focused on building a more secure future together and are reportedly setting up a dog-breeding business. The insider adds, "They haven't fought at all and (they) bought a dachshund puppy to celebrate their fresh start. Gary and Shannon already had one dachshund and want to breed them. They look at it as a money-making venture that they can enjoy together."

Because we NEED more backyard breeders, right?  Gary wasn't much of a Dachshund fan in years past, apparently his wife has had several.  In 2008 when question about Gary's volatile personality, his wife responded:

Price answered that she did fear for her safety when she was questioned about it.  She answered “a lot, yes,” and also said she feared for her three dachshund dogs, which Coleman doesn’t like. Coleman answered “That doesn’t mean I’m going to kill them.”  Source.

File this under Hot Mess.  But we honestly wish them the best of luck.

Dachshund Hot Mess

I sometimes watch peoples dogs while they are out of town. One dog was a 4yr old dachsund. I backed over it in the driveway and need another one before they get home monday. It was a reddish color, and hope they don't notice. I'm serious as a heart attack and need it preferably sunday.


post flagged and removed yesterday at Craigslist, Los Angeles, California.