This is Sonja the lady that started it all. It’s all her fault if she wasn’t so perfect I wouldn’t have become so instantly addicted to dachshunds requiring me to take in another and another and another. Well maybe just one more when her mate wanted to rejoin her. Sonja came to live with us when a friend passed on and his fiancé needed to find Sonja a new home because she was unhappy in the new house with the roommates dog. So I adopted her for my husband. How wrong I was. She took one look at him, bit him and curled up with me. So started a bonding that has ended with her training herself to be my service alert dog which has allowed me to once again live a somewhat normal life.
This is Sonja’s lifemate Taz. He was so unhappy after they were split up that we had to reunite them so Taz came here to live with us. Finally my husband got his Doxie…Taz really likes men best. Sonja passed away in April of 2011, just two weeks shy of her 15th birthday, after having beaten heart disease for 6 long years. We think she just really missed Taz who had passed away in his sleep in November 2010. He was 16.5 years old.
This is BJ. He is my first “rescue” doxie. I had never even heard of rescues when a family from the neighborhood brought this boy by on a busy Sunday afternoon and asked us to take him or he would have to go to the Shelter. Well we couldn’t let that happen so BJ came to live with us. He was rambunctious, undisciplined and unfixed but we soon got over all those problems. He is now our “therapy” dog. Since he is so mellow and loves everyone dog and human alike he is the first one all of the fosters are introduced to and it is his job to help them integrate into the pack.
On a sad note on Friday March 21, 2008 we had to help BJ cross the bridge. BJ got a rare autoimmune disease called nodular Panniculitis. A small scratch on the back of his neck turned into a disease we just could not fight. So when he developed pneumonia on Thursday evening we decided it was best to ease his pain. We miss him more than words can speak.
Here is Otto. He was my first real adventure into the rescue department. He was at the humane society shelter hurt and cold and so sorry looking. Well he was so cute I just couldn’t say no and anyway I always wanted a long hair doxie and my husband always wanted a black and tan doxie. With the help of the vet we got him home and the medical care he needed. And we braced ourselves for expensive operations to fix him. It turned out that he had been hurt too many days before and the vet was afraid that the surgery would hurt more than it helped. So we accepted that we would have a lame doxie. Well it seemed BJ had other ideas and he supplemented my physical therapy regiment with one of his own. Amazingly enough the boy still has a “broken” and overlapping pelvic bone but no one would ever know by looking at him run, jump and play.
While not an official founding member Wulfie here is my other soul mate. He is a daily living reminder of why we do what we do. 
He came to us from a shelter described as the nastiest dachshund they had ever gotten. They had to handle him with heavy leather welding gloves. He was barely given 24 hours before he was going to get the final stick. I just couldn’t let that happen. I had to find a way to give him a chance….nasty or not. Well the poor guy was practically emaciated and frightened to death. (The picture above was taken about a week after he arrived and he had already put on some weight) He had obviously come from a neglectful and possibly more abusive home. He hated men, despised other dogs and was horribly frightened of and vicious towards children. He was so malnourished he was having regular cluster seizures. He was basically all my worst case scenarios bundled up into one dog. I knew that even after we got him calmed down and fattened up he would be difficult to place….no one wants an old grey dog that hates men, dogs and children. 
We have worked hard with him over the years and now he is a very well adjusted little boy. He still doesn’t particularly like children but is doing very well with other dogs and is a total push over for men and women alike. We have nicknamed him — the puddle puppy — because he just turns into a puddle of sweetness whenever he wants loving….which is basically every waking moment. Somewhere in the early days those lost little eyes did a number on me and I had fallen so in love with him there is no way I could ever have given up my baby. Just look at the before and after photos…the first taken a week after he arrived and the after is his professional portrait taken at the 2006 Dachshund Outreach picnic. 
The last picture we taken just last year. He is now nearing his 18th year on earth. He has developed CCD which a type of doggie dementia. While a bit of confusion is part of his everyday life I just keep him close to me all the time and he is fine.