Otto is a standard sized, black and tan dachsund. He's extremely obedient yet very playful. Unlike Spunky, he does wonderfully in the car. He sleeps on my lap till we get there. Mr. Von Kleiber doesn't like to be held alot, but he'll come up and sleep on you. He's got a very deep bark and is a great watch dog.
Whenever there's a knock or a door bell rings on the TV, he starts barking and looks towards our door. Sometimes he'll stare at another dog on the TV and bark at him too.
DJ and I looked at hundreds of names, but ended up using the one that came to my head the very first day we got him. We had to drive down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere to get him. He was the second to the last of his siblings to leave home (6-8 weeks old). He looks almost exactly like his dad.
When he was younger,many people weren't sure what kind of dog he was. Some thought he was a doberman or a rottweiler (go figure!).
As a puppy his favorite pastimes were to steal toys from Spunky, and play tug of war with him using a rope. He used to like to play fetch, but not long after Spunky arrived he figured out that Spunky was always going to get there ahead of him. If I have two balls and threw the first to Spunky and then the other to Otto, he'd play fetch just like before. Maybe that's why he nipped or threatened to bite Spunky on the leg or somewhere on his head whenever Spunky was chewing on a toy. This caused Spunky to drop the toy which Otto then promptly grabed. It didn't matter that he already had the same thing, only that Spunky had something.
He's also got an extremely good nose. Whenever there is a lost toy underneath something, he roots it out with his nose and starts scratching in the area. I investigate, and sure enough, there is a toy there.
After we had to find a new home for Spunky, Mr. Otto was very depressed for months on end. He wasn't eating like before and he was sleeping all day and extremely clingy. We decided to get another dog, Bear Bear with a lower level of energy than Spunky to keep Mr. Otto company. Since the people with the pit bull next door had moved we felt it'd be safe to get another dog. Before getting Bear Bear, we never combed Mr. Otto because his hair was so short and he didn't need it. Nevertheless, since he saw Bear Bear getting combed on the chair, Mr. Otto insisted that he should get combed and started jumping up onto the chair after I was done combing Bear Bear.
Fortunately, Bear Bear never showed much interest in playing fetch and Mr. Otto resumed his pre-Spunky levels of interest in playing fetch. It's also helpful with the jealousy they both have when I'm petting either one of them. I can continue to pet Bear Bear while I toss the ball to Mr. Otto and he fetches it.
Mr. Otto is also an accomplished singer. When he hears a song he likes, he'll tilt his head up, rotate it back and forth, and then proceed to howl to the singer's voice. He likes to sing along with his favorites: Joan Osbourne, Tori Amos, and Janis Joplin. Of course if he's outside he'll also howl along with the train... hmm... He's definitely got the hound dog blues.
