Ebbie represents one-third of columnist Steve Moseley’s dachshund herd.

Photo courtesy Steve Moseley

As if old age isn’t impossible enough, Good Wife Norma and I have further handicapped our twilight years by saddling ourselves with three (count ‘em, three) wiener dogs. Some refer to these miscreant creatures as “tube dogs” for the fact that, when inserted in an appropriately sized round cardboard tube, they are easily stackable.

A word of advice, however: Always insert them snoot first. Turns out the legs fold up in just the one direction. Learned that one the hard way.

We have shared our home with 10 wiener dogs over the decades, best GWN and I can recall. All of them came to us in need of a home from a variety of circumstances.

One of our favorites, Mr. Personality Derby, actually came to us while we were living in Powell. Brian and Nan O’Neill were in housing transition and needed a loving home for The Derbster. He lived in the lap of luxury with us for years and years in Wyoming and here in Nebraska until a horrific skin disease forced us to say goodbye.

Our present all-girl trio begins with Ebbie, the dapple long-haired Doxie you see here. Next by seniority is Grande Dame Daphne, a jet black long-haired sophisticate. The kid of the herd is red, short-haired Annie. Although north of 70 ourselves, GWN and I have a shot to out-live Ebbie and Daphne, both 13. Our dream of serenity in a yapless, wiener-free zone remains in grave peril: Annie, sad to say, is a relatively youthful 7.

Wiener dogs, by and large, have little to recommend them. This assessment is clear to all who know this keenly annoying breed. Inexplicably this shortcoming sways GWN’s misguided devotion nary a single whit.

GWN is the one smitten with wiener dogs, not me. This makes it all the more humiliating to acknowledge it is not she, but rather me, who bears blame for the three we have now.

The situations were different for each one, but they all needed a home — Annie desperately so — and I was a soft touch times three. No one saw that coming, especially me. Proves the old adage: No good deed shall go unpunished.

My dad always described Doxies as “half a dog tall and a dog and a half long.” I judge that to be pretty doggone close.

Clearly we are doomed to huddle in full wiener dog immersion upon this boring plain for life, what little remains of it anyway.

Could be worse, I suppose. Thank goodness she didn’t fall in love with goats.