Stunt dog

Within the first couple weeks of having Pollock, he started a hilarious habit of sprinting in circles around my apartment's courtyard. He does this almost every time we let him off leash without any provocation. Since I wanted to capture it on film, here is Mike egging him on:

Pollock's First Snow

Location: Budapest
November 26, 2010
Adventure #42

Pollock does not like to get wet, so I did not know how he would react to snow. As it turns out, he loves playing in piles of it, as long as it's not sleeting on him. Here is a picture of him on the first night it snowed.

We were at a sports bar until about midnight watching college football with some of Mike's friends from Texas, and when we left the city was blanketed with the white stuff. It was about a 20 minute walk home, and I have never seen Pollock run inside our apartment faster than when we was getting out of the hard-falling flakes.

Now that the snow has settled, I can't keep him away from the drifts. Pollock loves to eat chunks of snow and chasing snowballs. Here he is, stalking his frozen prey:

Sick Puppy

Location: Gozsdu Udvar
November 20, 2010
Adventure #40
Last week, there was a Jewish culinary festival, JudaFest, in my apartment complex. Although I enjoyed inhaling the aromas of pastries, roasting meat and sholet each time I walked outside, there were some drawbacks (including hearing faint Klezmer music in my flat for about a week straight), like making Pollock sick.

While I am not certain the foreign food was the culprit, Pollock became very ill this weekend and was not holding down his food. This isn't all too surprising because nearly every time we went outside, Pollock quickly devoured any stray kosher crumb sloppy eaters/festival goers left in our courtyards including garlic bread, some bananas and all sorts of tasty morsels. To combat his ill-fated culinary variety, we switched him to a white-rice diet yesterday, and now he seems ok. These new Asian eats have inspired Mike to sing Pollock impromptu ballads like "[You] are Siamese if you please" and "I think [you're] turning Japanese" - musical therapy at it's finest.

While Mike and I were doting, fast-acting canine custodians when responding to our sick puppy, like taking him outside at 5:30am when his stomach was gurgling loud enough to wake us up, luckily nothing was as icky as Hungary's second red sludge disaster that happened in my bedroom at 3am a few weeks back. Mike was out of town and Pollock projectile vomited the remnants of a crimson bone I had given him earlier in the day - it's a good thing he's so damn cute.

Becoming Canine Custodians

Location: Budapest
October 20, 2010
Adventure #36

Hello world, meet Pollock. His likes include curling up in laps, chewing stuffed animals shaped as dogs (he's a bit cannibalistic), bringing stray socks into his kennel and sprinting in circles around Budapest courtyards. Dislikes include being alone - even for a second, peeing in front of strangers and loud cars. I think we were meant to be.

An eccentric link that Michael and I have always shared is our utter infatuation with dachshunds. Both of our parents have had or have miniature, long-haired varieties of wiener dog, and we always vowed to have our own one day. Since living in Europe, our sights have been set on wire-haired ones, or as Michael calls them “old-man dachshunds” due to their beards.

Well, after months of searching, we acquired our very own little, old-man dachshund. He was born on May 31, so he's currently four and a half months old. We bought him from wonderful breeders in Eastern Hungary who used to call him Chester. While a cute name, we wanted something a bit more original, so we chose Ottokar Pollock von Beahm Klein – yes, we know we are ridiculous.

First, Ottokar is a traditional Hungarian name, and is also the name of a former king of Bohemia, which is perfect because he needed something that embraced his Hungarian roots. Also, Otto was a name suggestion from our wedding “Madlibs” where we asked our wedding guests to help name our future dachshund. Now, Pollock is what we actually call him, and he is named after Michael’s favorite artist, Jackson Pollock. This name is particularly fitting, because Pollock has a long, wiry tail that resembles a paint brush, so he deserved an artistic name.

Highlights of his first week home include:

- Befriending all of our apartment complex’s burly security guards. One guard pets him every chance he gets, and also shows me pictures of his dog he has on his phone.

- Falling asleep on the dirty clothes shelf of my gigantic wooden wardrobe.

- Chasing multiple neighbor dogs around my apartment courtyard.

- Being overall awesome about using the outdoor little dog's room.

- Making my life at least twice as happy.