I compose these words in the highest state of bucolic repose, with my indomitable dachshund, Bandit, ensconced upon my lap in her approximation of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s famous painting La Grande Odalisque, basking in the glory of her being.
On August 19 Bandit will celebrate her third birthday, and while I am clearly of a biased opinion, it is my belief that some of history’s greatest individuals have been dachshund owners, and that to own a dachshund demonstrates an intellectual capacity and sensitivity to beauty that is well attuned. These include Kaiser Wilhelm II, whose intrepid dachshunds, during a visit to Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s country seat of
