When we lived in Aransas Pass and both PD and Henry were
young, Wife and I would often sit outside in the evenings. We would enjoy the sea breeze and the cool
shade of our Live Oak trees.
PD and Henry were full of youthful energy. They would often entertain us by chasing each
other around the yard. PD would chase
Henry around the shed, under the lawn chairs and around the trees. We’d watch and laugh when Henry would
sometimes take a break in the game.
Henry would gain distance from PD and then stop once he was out of PD’s
sight. Then he’d sit in the grass and
watch PD continue to run around the course, thinking Henry was just ahead of
him. When he got tired of watching PD run by him self, Henry would take off in the opposite direction. The two would cross paths at a high rate of speed, barely missing each other, like the Blue Angels with their thrilling in-air stunts.
Sometimes the two of them would
come crashing into one of the chairs as they misjudged the turn. Or
Henry would broad-side PD and send PD rolling through the grass.
Wife and I just saw this as an interactive game of chase
and enjoyed the show.
When Frank came along, PD was already too old to play
chase. But Frank was young and full of
joyful exuberance. He wanted to play and
needed to release his pent up energy.
Wife and I had become busier in our lives and spent less time walking
the dogs, or even sitting out in the back yard.
What’s a young, high-energy dachshund supposed to do when
surrounded by a bunch of “old fogies?”
The answer is “Zoomies!”
I have to thank the Dachshund-Talk forum for giving me a name for this
phenomenon. Without them, I would have
never known what to call it. Zoomies
describes the action perfectly.
They started when we were still living in the old house in
Aransas Pass. Every evening around meal
time, we would hear the clatter of toe nails on hardwood as Frank would jump
off the love seat in the TV room. We’d
look up in time to see a brown and white streak flying past the kitchen door
toward the living room. Then Frank would
come racing back and making a hard left turn into the kitchen.
With the hardwood floor, he would almost always overshoot the mark, sliding past the door as his paws scrambled to make purchase, and sometimes slamming into the door frame. Then Frank would zoom through the kitchen, into the mud room, out the doggy door, back into the mud room, and back through the kitchen. He’d then hang a left, go back into the TV room, fly onto the loveseat, jump off, and start the whole course all over.
Frank did this with his tail wagging, and a look of joy on his face. Usually two or three trips around the house like this, and then the Zoomies stopped, just as suddenly as they began. He walked calmly into the kitchen and get a drink of water as if nothing unusual had happened.
Frank continued to run his Zoomies in our little patio home and he still has them in our new home. We have a bit more of the floor covered with carpeting, and he seems thankful for that. The paths he invents have altered a bit to accommodate the shape of the house and then number of rooms available to him. But the behavior and the pure joy we see in him has not.
I love Zoomies!
Frank's Zoomies
If none of the videos or links above work, copy and paste on this link:
https://youtu.be/Yq7CX7Wryc0
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