Are you at a loose end tomorrow?
More specifically … will you be at the loose end, holding a leash and expecting to see a bored, socially starved, sausage-shaped dog staring back at you from the other?
If so, you’re in luck.
Napier Bathrooms & Interiors in Canonmills are hosting an informal dachshund get-together on Sunday, involving more company, conviviality and dog-related conversation than you could possibly shake a chorizo at.
All local dachshunds are welcome, and well-behaved owners are allowed in, too.
His three-and-a-half-year-old chum Alfie regularly accompanies him to the shop, and it was here that a customer first alerted them to a group of like-minded people in the area who normally meet in the park over the summer, but find things less agreeable at this time of year when the puddles are deeper.
Bacigalupo immediately saw a long thin gap in Broughton’s social calendar, and offered Napier’s premises on the basis that, whatever the worst was that could possibly happen, it could easily be mopped up afterwards in a shop tiled from ceiling to floor.
Bacigalupo was formerly a ‘cat person’, but has been won round since by this diminutive breed’s 'huge personality, loyalty, confidence, and determination to succeed'. Also by its pragmatic willingness to abandon disputes whenever there’s no hope of success and there might be food on offer.
News of the Napier invitation spread rapidly via Facebook and, so far, 27 loveable pipe-cleaners-on-legs will attend.
She’s kindly offering party-bags containing ‘Posh Lily’s Kitchen Food’, gourmet chicken sausage (‘Dogs go bloody nuts for it,’ says Bacigalupo), vegetable-based chews, and a hand-baked biscuit.
'The hand-baked biscuit,' says Alfie, 'is shaped like a terrier you could give a damn-good seeing-to if it gave you any of that attitude and you weren’t already too intelligent and unconcerned about height issues to give a stuff about it in the first place. Horrible horrible horrible bastard terrier horrible bastard.'
All party-bags will be tied up in paw-print ribbons.
If this sounds like your cup of tea, go and enjoy a cup of tea tomorrow from 2.00–4.00pm at 30 Canonmills.
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Interesting fact: Dachshund in German means badger-dog, because the breed was originally bred to hunt badgers. Less well-known are Hundsdacshe – badgers bred to hunt dachshunds (see below) – of which, thankfully, no confirmed instances have been recorded recently in Edinburgh.
