That's Show Biz

 Our dog used to roll over on his back when you tried to pick him up. That's something that dachshunds do instinctively as hunters of badgers. Built as close to the ground, Rupert was assuming the posture that would help him in the event that he was caught in a burrow of some below-ground dwelling weasel. Happily for those of us who came upon him in this prone position, Rupert did not start scratching frantically at whatever was above him. At this point, it was easy enough to reach down and scoop him up under his front legs, leaving his back end dangling in a most pendulous fashion. Part of this resignation was no doubt due to the life that he led. He wasn't spoiled so much as he as favored. 

Rupert was an only dog. He came to our family as kind of a replacement for a dachshund puppy named Snoopy who succumbed tragically to kennel cough before we had a chance to really know him. That was not the case with Rupert. We got to know him, love him, and ritually humiliate him over time. That last bit was mostly my fault, because over the course of the latter years of Rupert's life we had an act. Animal impersonations. To be clear, Rupert did the impressions. I manipulated him. And he let me. No nipping. No growling. Just an otherworldly patience as he awaited his ultimate reward.

A biscuit. 

I would hold him in my lap, pull his ears, stretch his legs this way and that, and even pulled on his jaws to make him speak John Lennon's last words, "I'm shot." Then, once we had run through the entire bit, he would hop off my lap and head to the kitchen where he would sit and wait for me to follow him in to deliver that Milk Bone. Which he accepted. With dignity. 

Not bad for a wiener dog named Rupert.