Howl-O-Weenie a howling success!

{More photos coming soon! Carol is working on a little webpage that we will link from the dream website. Send your photos to cashock (at) comcast.net (take out the (at) and replace with @ - fools spam}


All of us at DREAM are exhausted but jubilant after another successful Howl-O-Weenie. After a nail-biting Friday of rain and wind (during which we carried more tables back and forth than my back could comfortably handle and agonized over whether anyone would show up), we had a beautiful Saturday afternoon at Glen Lake Park -- complete with sunshine for the weiner dogs to bask in.

We believe the picnic raised between $10 - 11,000 -- this money goes to veterinary care for the abandoned dachshunds all year. We still have a few invoices left to come in, and a few donations are still coming in, so we don't have a final number yet.

My highlights: seeing my foster dogs having a BIG time with their new families.

The first ones to arrive were Midnight, Bart, and Patty. Murphy is Midnight's new name and he looked happy and healthy and shiny with his new buddy, the black Great Dane. Bart was irrepressible as ever. He has never met a stranger. When Bart came to DREAM, he had a large hole in his upper palate through to his sinus cavities, requiring several surgeries to close as much as possible. Patty, now Erica, was terrified of people when DREAM found her abandoned on a farm. Her new family has loved her and provided her with such feelings of safety, that she is now able to enjoy a dachshund picnic!!

Then we saw Dexter, who had just competed in the Dachshund Dash. Handsome as ever and his mom Lynn said he was doing great!

Giacomo (now Murphy too!) was there with his mom, dad, brother, and sister, fresh from a morning soccer game. He now lives in Newnan and roams with the neighborhood kids and gets lots of love and snuggles from all of them.

Asher was there -- an amazing story. When I picked up Asher at the shelter, he had NO hair, and his skin was smelly and sticky from mange. His foster mom brought all that hair back, and at the picnic no one recognized him -- he had LONG beautiful silky hair and was so happy.

Angelina was there with her new brothers, all of them dressed in Falcon's garb. Angelina was the cheerleader! Whenever she sees me, she runs up and puts her little front feet on my legs. When we got Angelina, she had a heart murmur that required surgery. Without it, she wouldn't have lived past 2, but now she is 4.

Saylor! He looked so shiny and happy and healthy! And his mom and dad were so proud of him, and told me how happy he is every day to greet them when they get home, and how good Saylor is with Jeremy's little boy.

Have I missed anyone? My head is still a blur....

Our contests were in the upper field this year...not ideal. Next year we'll make sure we get the lower field again (if we don't move to a larger park). One poor man fell down that hill and hurt his head....we don't want that again!

I NEVER want to judge the costume contests again -- it is far too hard to choose and so many people make such COOL costumes with clever details. I loved the mermaid, the chicken, the Incredibles (complete with a big belly doggie), the bus and firetruck, the hula girl with her tiny painted nails, and of course the two winners -- WEEN Valdez and the Longhorn.

The kissing contest winner had more than 60 licks in a minute!

I got this report on the Howling Contest...can you tell Terri (Owen's new mom) is a writer??
"It was such an exciting event. Some wieners were too nervous to perform, their little shocked faces trembling from all the commotion, but their parents showered them with love anyway so none felt dejected. The ones who did howl were quite impressive, and the winner was difficult to choose. We looked not only for enthusiasm and form, but also for heart and soulfulness. And for those last two qualities, Andy stole the show. His was a lovely howl with pure, rich tones, wrought from the depths of his innermost self—his memories and dreams, his scars and celebrations, his loves and losses—and unleashed to the sky without shame or apology. In that moment, there on the field of HowlOWeenie, Andy was every dog, and he was every one of us. We looked deep inside him and found only good, and we loved him for that."

I heard the DASH worked well in heats -- next year we will have certificates for the heat winners and award gold, silver, and bronze medals like the Olympics. The pictures I saw were hilarious...like the Kentucky Derby, but with much shorter legs.

Such beautiful pictures for our calendar contest! I can't wait to see the finished product. Please email us if you want to pre-order, last year we sold out completely even BEFORE we put them on the website....the 12 winners bought all the calendars!

The 50/50 raffle didn't get as many participants as we thought it would...anyone have thoughts on why?

Hotdog sales brisk (this is a huge moneymaker for us, since Publix donates almost all the food, it is almost pure profit.) Who doesn't love a chili dog with homemade chili? And the homemade desserts!!!

The T-shirt sales were good. We have more of each shirt, let me know if you would like to order one. We can mail it to you for $21 total. Terry Pond donates the art for the shirts each year, and they are always charming.

I loved our auction art so much this year. The beautiful glass mosaic, the painted window (which I won! It is in my breakfast nook right now! I spend a lot of $$ at this picnic myself!), and the Matt Rinard original proof. We would also love your thoughts on what you'd like to see in the auction.

Some of our vendors did great, others not so much. I would love to hear from anyone on what vendors they would like to see next year. The vendors make a big donation to DREAM, so I want them to have a good day.

Another Howl-O-Weenie first -- we had a proposal, in between the contests! Hottie (the chicken) and Molly's mom, Aly, is now engaged to her beloved, Elroi! I'll post a picture soon! (I asked them if they wanted to do the ceremony at next year's picnic, but she has been diplomatically silent so far...probably has a very different vision of her big day.)

Send your favorite HowlOWeenie pictures -- we'll post them here!

Our board is having a retreat in December -- planning for HOWL 2007 will be underway -- our 5th anniversary! What was just a gleam in Carol's eye 4 years ago is now a dachshund tradition in Atlanta!

I would love to hear anyone's ideas on how to make HowlOWeenie 2007 even better! What would you do differently? What do you wish we did? What do you wish we didn't do? Any idea, large or small....let us hear from you! Just post a comment to this blog.