The Dachshund and the Kibble

Photo via the April, 2012 issue of Country Living magazine (click to enlarge)

There was once upon a time a Prince who wanted a Dachshund, but the dog must be a true Dachshund. So he traveled through the whole world to find one, but there was always something against each. There were plenty of Long and Short dogs, but he could not find out if they were true Dachshunds. In every case there was some little defect, which showed the genuine article was not yet found. So he came home again in very low spirits, for he had wanted very much to have a true Dachshund. One night there was a dreadful storm; there was thunder and lightning and the rain streamed down in torrents. It was fearful! There was a knocking heard at the Palace gate, and the old King went to open it.

There stood a Dachshund outside the gate; but oh, in what a sad plight she was from the rain and the storm! The water was running down her coat and into the webs of her paws and out again. And yet she said she was a true Dachshund!

‘Well, we shall soon find out!’ thought the old Queen. But she said nothing, and went into the sleeping-room, and laid a small piece of kibble on the bottom of a dog bed. Then she put twenty dog beds on top of the kibble, and twenty eider-down quilts on the top of the dog beds. And this was the bed in which the Dachshund was to sleep.

The next morning she was asked how she had slept.

‘Oh, very badly!’ said the Dachshund. ‘I scarcely closed my eyes all night.  I was forever turning in circles and pawing and fluffing the eider-down quilts! I am sure I don’t know what was in the bed. I laid on something so hard that my whole body is black and blue. It is dreadful!’

Now they perceived that she was a true Dachshund, because she had felt the kibble through the twenty dog beds and the twenty eider-down quilts.

No dog but a true Dachshund could be so sensitive.

So the Prince adopted her, for now he knew that at last he had got hold of a true Dachshund. And the piece of kibble was put into the Royal Museum, where it is still to be seen if no little Dachshund has eaten it. Now this is a true story.