Forced diet creates canine evil genius

Daisy, a beagle-dachshund mix bequeathed to me last year by a fellow editor, is by far the best dog I've ever had in terms of politeness, affection and degree of appreciation for the historic preservation of my carpet.

But I still miss Sausage.

They say pets fill whatever void there may be in your life. They say that to your face, anyway, before they tell everyone else you're one of those freaky animal people.

That axiom, if not its implications, certainly holds true for my sister and I. She avoided the pain of child birth, but instead has two Pomeranians that are, in effect, perpetual motion toddlers that have to be pulled from their cribs every four of five hours for this or that.

Sausage, an earthy dachshund aptly named by an 11-year-old who had reached his zenith of cleverness, was my buddy. He got a dog biscuit every time I got a popsicle -- partners in arms, that kind of thing. He was in his early teens by the time I was in my early 20s and in grad school at The University of Tennessee.

Graduate student housing didn't allow pets, and my salary as a grad assistant didn't allow any other form of housing, so my mom was stuck alone with Sausage for two years, or vice versa, as Sausage and I would tend to see it.

Problem was, with Mom, Sausage didn't get a dog biscuit every time she got a popsicle, or any other time for that matter.

You see, Mom grew up on a farm in Sugar Creek, near Arcadia, La., in the 1930s and 40s, and pets were barely tolerated mongrels that belonged outside, just like would-be boyfriends or people who wouldn't vote for Huey Long even if you paid them to.

Mongrels were lucky to get two square meals a day. Though her love for her youngest son prompted some compromise, ever-stingy Mom didn't see any particular reason why Sausage should win the dog-biscuit Lotto.

This, however, stirred in Sausage a level of ingenuity/deviance that would fill me with misplaced pride.

Suddenly deprived, Sausage began to yank items from the living room and go under the kitchen table, holding them hostage until Mom came up with the milk-bone ransom.

By the time I returned from school on Christmas break, Darwinism had taken over; Mom and Sausage had evolved into more complex adversaries.

Mom stopped paying up for useless items Sausage might seize, like last week's sports section or pictures of her son-in-law, and would let Sausage's kitchen-table confetti machine churn unabated.

Sausage, in turn, became well aware of the brass-ring value of certain items, and always took advantage of a neglected remote control or pack of cigarettes.

By the time I could observe raw nature in action, it was clear Mom was losing the survival of the fittest.

Usually, when Mom and I were snack hunting in the kitchen, Sausage would awaken from his idleness and realize we were about to eat and he wasn't.

It was on such an occasion, with me eating chips at the kitchen table Christmas Eve, that I observed a breakthrough.

Mom said he'd all but stopped taking sections of the paper lying in big stacks on the coffee table, showing almost as much disinterest in them as most of my Gen-X brethren.

But the TV section was a different shape, with alternating white and grey bars, and was a highly handled and valued commodity. Suddenly, this distinction was not lost on anyone.

I witnessed Sausage put his front two feet on the edge of the coffee table and root -- yes, I said root -- through the papers until he found the weekly TV section, and proudly galloped under the kitchen table before I could come out of my awe-inspired trance.

Mom was helpless.

That was a week's worth of leisure time that mongrel had under the table.

The balance of power irrevocably shifted.

If Mom couldn't catch up with Sausage, time surely did. At 16 years of age, my canine buddy made use of an open door and took an unchaperoned hiking trip without the proper equipment (hearing, eyesight) and was no match for oncoming traffic.

I was eventually consoled by the fact my mom was just as upset as me. I might've been his best buddy, but she, after all, was his inspiration for genius.