Beware the wild pack o wieners!

I was peering into a microscope when Dr. Brian came around the corner with a look on his face that puzzled me. It was a mix of laughter and bewilderment and made his eyebrows rest at different levels on his forehead.

“You gotta go have a look at the pit bull dog in the first exam room,” he said. “Just have a look at it and tell me what you think.”

There was no hint in his voice as to what I might see.

I stepped into the exam room as saw a ten-month-old pit bull puppy with bite wounds all over his fanny and back legs. His owner was a middle-aged lady with stiff black hair who was wearing a mumu. She was ranting to an adolescent boy in the room who seemed to be paying no attention to her at all.

When she saw me enter the room, she started her story from the beginning. The young boy sighed. I, however, found myself totally engrossed in her story. She kept her lips pursed and her eyes were large and rounded and full of expression.

“I looked out the front door and my pit bull was standing in the middle of the grass on the east side of the yard. There was a pack o' wieners surrounding him,” she said. “They were ferocious beasts that were showing their fangs and darting in and out so fast that he couldn't defend himself. The ones closest to his head would distract him, while the ones behind him would chew up his posterior. When he would turn on the back ones, the front ones would then chew his posterior.

“It was horrible!” she continued. “They were possessed by the devil-I'm telling you. There were dozens of them. I ran out the front door and screamed at them while waving a broom and they disappeared into the brush on the west side of the house. Oh my gosh, what a traumatic experience!”

I now knew why Dr. Bryan had the strange look on his face. As her story went on, I could feel my expression was the same. I was pretty sure she said “pack o' wieners,” but I wasn't sure what that really was. It didn't matter. The way she told the story prompted a rush of adrenaline, and I too felt the need to have round eyes and pursed lips.

I asked her what a pack o' wieners was. She quickly snapped, “Wiener dogs! Man-eating, slobbering, frothing, wieners.”  

When I left the room I couldn't decide whether to laugh or feel dread for the people in her town. After all, a mere 50 miles from Lamesa, Texas, where my clinic is, there's a pack o' wieners that can outmatch a pit bull.

A few days later I was walking through the lobby and encountered a rather sophisticated lady with a bleeding German shepherd. It seemed to have bite marks all over its hind end and I wondered if perhaps it had met the same fate as the pit bull. When I asked what had happened to the pooch, her lips pursed and her eyes rounded as the explained the series of events.

“We were taking a walk close to the park on Fifth and Maple when out of the bushes came a herd of weenie dogs. There were dozens of them. They seemed to have no interest in me at all-only my dog,” she said. “They surrounded him and attacked him from the rear no matter which way he faced. I was screaming and kicking, but the beasts were like piranhas attacking him relentlessly. I picked up a stick and began swinging it in all directions and finally scared them off. But my dog was wounded badly and that is why I'm here.”

What? Two episodes of wiener dog savagery in one week? I felt bad for the dog but laughed a little as I visualized what a herd of mad weenies must look like.

As fate would have it, the very next day a third victim made its way to our clinic. This lady was a bit less refined than the first two and her expression was more angry and matter of fact. Her dog was chewed up the worst and her story involved action instead of reaction.

“The flock of wieners appeared out of nowhere and surrounded me and my red healer with bad intention. I could tell it in their bark, they meant business. They were all different colors and some had long hair, but none of them was more than seven inches tall,” she exclaimed. “They surrounded us and began yipping and darting so fast that my dog had no chance. They would rear up on their hind legs as they came in for the attack. I was frantically kicking and rebuking them, but they just kept chewing up his hind end. A man working in his yard saw the event and came to our aid with a shovel. We managed to run them off and they went down an alley toward the high school.

“I called the animal control officer and he told me that there had been many complaints, but the wieners were clever and he couldn't find them,” she continued. “He said he was afraid that they had reverted to their primitive state and were a danger to the town!”

Reverted to their primitive state? I pictured a saber-toothed weenie dog with giant incisors and woolly neck hair like a male lion. Was there truly a time when savage weenie dogs roamed the plains of Germany in giant packs, killing everything in their path?

I went to my office and wrote down the different descriptions I'd heard over the last few days to describe a dachshund. I laughed to myself considering just how lucky I am to be a veterinarian.

Who else gets to be exposed to a pack, a herd, or a flock of ferocious, devil-possessed dogs with barks that meant business? Dogs that would dart, rear and yip with fangs showing. Dogs that had multiple coat lengths and colors and piranha-like tendencies, that were possibly man-eating and had slobber frothing at their mouths, and had possibly reverted to a primitive state?

Who would have ever supposed that wieners could be so tough.