My New Coat: A Long and Short Story

I am long and short, and I have smooth, beautiful black and tan fur. But sometimes I get cold on the top of Swiss mountains or when I'm pushing my way through Idaho snow, so Mom decided I needed a jacket. No member of Mom's fur family has ever needed a jacket before.

Our special Idaho Pet Mobile vet Dr. Ward was the first to suggest that I needed a winter coat! Mom started searching on the web and thought about making me a coat, but she will readily admit that she's not that handy with a Singer. She tends toward crafting stories instead of sewing memories. Furthermore, Mom doesn't have much sense of measurements. It's part of her SBMC problem: Smart But Math Challenged.

The first coat she ordered was from L.L.Bean, and she was super excited. Did I mention that I am low to the ground? Long? Duh! The barn coat that arrived will fit a Yorkie, but not me, even if it did have my name nicely embroidered on it. Mom felt kind of stupid, so I tried to cheer her up. Besides, L.L.Bean is a great company, and they were nice enough to take back the coat and give us a full refund. I hope some Yorkie named Tootsie is running around in my coat. Here's part of the letter that customer service wrote Mom:


Thank you for contacting L.L.Bean regarding your Pet Coat.

I am so sorry to hear that the coat did not fit your dachshund Tootsie.

We do not have a time limit on returns. You certainly are welcome to wait until December when you are in the US.

If we can be of further assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are available 24 hours and are always happy to help.

Our special vet reminded us to look for places that specialize in all things wiener. Mom had a great time looking through jackets and “Hug-a-Dog Harnesses” at the Dachshund Delights store. She found out about them from the "Long and Short of It All: A Dachshund News Magazine."

Dachshund Delights is an awesome store! Their dachshund service is fantastic. They helped Mom figure out how to measure me and followed up with personal emails. My new "Hug-a-Dog CoverUp" arrived before Christmas. Check out the cool print of doggies around my neck!

My new CoverUp coat is long, like me, and short, like me, too. Wotten waven!