Big Day in a Small Dog's Life
One thing Dachshunds are very good at is finding things with their nose. One thing they're very bad at is finding things without their nose. I've seen Tahmie wandering around looking for his favorite toy 'Mr. Roadkill' the squeaky squirrel, and walk past it several times while sniffing it down. He eventually finds Mr. Roadkill, but after a long agonizingly long process that he seems to love.
Dhani on the other hand doesn't seem to care about finding things, except bunnies. There's fat little bunnies living all around us and if he gets a wiff of one on a walk the nose goes into overdrive and he tracks that bunnies path until he either looses it, or bumps into the damn dumb thing because he wasn't looking, he was sniffing. (At that point the bunny takes off in a sudden spray of leaves and snow and Dhani is left barking his damn fool head off all the while widdling in surprise.)
That being said, Dachshunds are the worst dog ever invented for catching popcorn. Every non dachshund I've owned (including several cats) have been able to snag popcorn out of the air like Ted Williams shagging pop flies. There's a little smacking sound of the mouth springing open followed by the snap of the jaws clamping shut and the popcorn no longer exists.
Not dachshunds. To them popcorn doesn't even exist until after first bounce, then they can track it down via snoot power, but to them inflight popcorn is an unnatural event to be ignored until it hits them on the snout then rolls off under the couch.
However last night Dhani, Tahmie and I were watching some science channel and enjoying popcorn. I decided enough with coddling them and handing them every kernel. They were going to eat popcorn like self respecting dogs eat popcorn. We went through nearly half a bag of popcorn (thank goodness I have a Kirby vacuum cleaner) until Tahmie opened his mouth and caught one! Three tries later Dhani caught one! After that it was smooth sailing. Not 100% but close.
For my next trick I'm going to teach them to stop barking at the train as it travels 'round and 'round under the Christmas tree.