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Fritzi
I have a dog by the name
of Fritz Von Fandal III and many times I have thought I
should write a book about him and his antics. Yesterday I
got an e-mail from a very good friend telling about his pup,
Buddy and decided that now is the time to write about Fritz.
To begin, Fritz is the
third Dachshund that our family has had as a pet and each
was named Fritz. The name came from Mickey??™s great
grandfather, Fritz (Frederick) Fandal. I had been doing
family genealogy research when we got our first dachshund
and the name seemed perfect for him.
When Fritz III arrived at
our house, he was an early birthday gift for me. He was so
tiny (not so now) and so cute and he just had to be the
third with the name. My children gave him to me for my 61st
birthday and I was home sick with a sinus infection at the
time. For several nights, Fritz and I shared a recliner
because it helped me to be able to breathe and sleep and he
did not like the puppy carrier he was "supposed" to sleep
in. He got really spoiled and thought that where I slept was
where he slept. Not so at the time, but things changed.
Two weeks after I got my
baby Fritz, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and he became
my loving bed and/or recliner partner again as I recovered
from surgery. That made him even more spoiled.
He had to sleep in his bed
at the foot of our bed at night and he did not like it at
all. However, the man of the house, Mickey, said "no dogs in
my bed" so there he stayed. Then winter hit and out
electricity was out for a week and that meant no heat in the
house. At night Mickey and I would go to bed and cover up
well; Fritz would be shivering in his bed. I don??™t think he
really was cold because he is probably the only dog alive
who has a king sized comforter as a bed but he knew that
shivers would make us think he was cold. Mickey said, "Okay,
you can get in our bed for now but as soon as the
electricity and heat are back, out you go." That was almost
five years ago and Fritz does go to sleep in his bed every
night just as he is told to do, but somehow around midnight
he manages to jump on our bed and snuggle under the covers.
You just can??™t let a dog take advantage of you like that
when the heat is off and expect him to go back to the old
ways afterward. Mickey doesn??™t want him in the bed but it is
easier to let him stay than it is to listen to him shake
those long ears and whine to be let up.
Fritz has also learned to
spell some words. He can??™t spell them out loud for us but
when we spell, he knows exactly what we are spelling. The
three words that he knows are "W A L K" and "G O O U T S I D
E". We started spelling walk because he would get too
excited when he heard the word spoken and wouldn??™t leave us
alone until we went for the walk. Then we started spelling
and he soon learned that too. He is very intelligent.
Fritz also loves to eat.
That is the reason he is not a very small pup any more. He
eats too much and gets too many little goodies from the
table when Mickey and Joey are eating. I give him some but
not like those two men. They seem to think he will be
unhappy if he doesn??™t get to eat what the family is eating!
Two weeks ago, I made
roast beef po??™boy meat and gravy for the workers who were
getting the park ready for the Race for the Cure?®.
Afterwards, I put the slow cooker back in my van in a box
along with the po??™boy bread and took the leftovers home. I
had a lot of items to load and unload from the van and
forgot to unload the po??™boy fixings. What I did not know was
that Fritz had jumped into the back of the van and eased to
the front where the po??™boys were sitting. I finished my
unloading/loading and started in the house. I couldn??™t find
Fritz anywhere. I called and called and finally I saw his
little black eyes peering at me through the window of the
van. When I opened the door I got quite a shock. He had
pushed the lid off the meat and gravy and opened the bread
wrapper! He had had quite a meal for himself. He was having
po??™boys and he had a very satisfied look on his face!
I fussed at him and told
him what a bad boy he had been (and of course, had to
dispose of the rest of the meat and gravy) and he did not
seem to care. His fat tummy was really fat and he was tired
so he took a nap.
This week, he did it
again. Not with po??™boys this time but with finger sandwiches
that I had leftover from a meeting. I was sitting on the
couch and Molly brought the sandwich tray to me. I started
opening the container so she could have a sandwich and did
not notice that Fritz has gotten on the couch beside me and
was having no trouble opening the part of the tray near him.
He really enjoyed the sandwiches he "wolfed down" before we
saw him. He really loves to eat, especially "people food".
Now for the last of his
tricks that I am going to write about. This summer I have
been getting up at 6 a.m. every day to take him for his
daily walk so I could avoid the heat of the day. Now that it
is getting to be fall, it is still very dark at 6 a.m. so I
am trying to walk a bit later each day. Yesterday, he did
not want to wait. He jumped on the bed beside me and started
licking my face and begging. I turned over and tried to go
back to sleep but felt him walking down to the foot of the
bed. Innocent me! I thought he was going to get off the bed
and let me sleep. That is a joke. He just went to the foot
of the bed and crossed over my legs to my other side. Then
he walked up the side of the bed on a section that was less
than a foot wide between me and the edge of the bed. When he
got to my head he licked my face and started jumping on the
bed. I woke up really fast and we had a bit of a frolic on
the bed with him insisting that I get up. We walked in the
"almost dark" yesterday!
Today, it is raining so we
are missing our walk; I wonder what he will have in store
for me today to make me do what he wants. He usually gets
his way so I am prepared. We may be walking with an
umbrella!
Doris B. Fandal
(c) September 24, 2004 |
