There's an art to saying 'no'.  Often it's tough, especially when it's dear friends who are doing the asking.  But even then, there are times when 'no' is the proper answer, such as when those dear friends want to bring over six miniature wiener dogs for a photo shoot.

                                                                                                                    Kenton greets his brethren.
You might better understand the situation if you were briefed on the particular species of canid we're talking about here.  The wiener dog, properly known as the Dachshund, was bred for hunting burrowing creatures (badgers and rabbits).  And that heritage has endowed them with a certain insatiable taste for violence.

We first encountered this when we were over at a friend's one day, and heard her dachshunds begin to bark wildly.  We ran outside, only to find that her dogs had cornered a groundhog.   The groundhog was uninjured, but the dogs were in bad shape.  One had part of its nose flopping to the side, and when I pulled another away from the groundhog, my hand was instantly soaked in blood.  The wiener's underarm had been bitten through, leaving a hole big enough to poke your finger through.  If we hadn't arrived at the scene, the wieners might have kept attacking until the groundhog had bitten them all to death. (Not a pleasant way to go to doggie heaven.)

                             This way!

Now these hounds from the underworld were coming to our house.  As soon as we saw Jenny and Michelle pull their car into the driveway, we locked our two dogs and two cats into the spare bedroom, for their own protection.  Then we braced for the assault.

The idea was to keep them all on their leashes until we could bring them upstairs for the photo shoot.  But they soon showed us the wisdom of that idea.

Then Rebecca started taking pictures, and by using various esoteric methods of dog hypnosis, we actually managed to get a few good poses --

But the dogs soon decided that modeling was boring, and moved on to more  intriguing endeavors, such as peeing on the rug.

Finally, it was time for a little human visitation, so Jenny and Michelle took the dogs out to the car and came back in to chat for a bit.  That's when the real trouble began.  For when Jenny and Michelle were ready to leave, we walked out to find that the dachshunds had commandeered the car. 

"They've locked the door," said Jenny.  "And the keys are inside."

"OnStar?" I suggested, knowing that they had the service, which among other handy favors will unlock your car remotely. 

"My cell's in the car, too," Jenny said.

                 "We're innocent. Honestly."
So we went in, called Jenny's husband, he got the number for OnStar.  Unfortunately, OnStar wanted to know the PIN number (perhaps they were suspicious when Michelle called and told them that her dogs had locked her out of her car), and no one could remember what it was.  It was at that very moment, as the OnStar people were feeling that their suspicions were justified, when Jenny announced that the dogs had just unlocked the car on their own.

"Thanks," Michelle told OnStar.  "My dogs just let me back in."

Inside, the wieners had apparently decided to relive ancient dachshund hunting rituals by devouring Jenny's chapstick and Michelle's new credit card.  At least they left the leather seats intact.

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