Dachshunds · Shoot the Dog, Volume Two
BANG! Evie, Minimus and the party trick
Every family has a party trick. In Evie and Minimus's house, it goes like this.
BANG! And Minimus is down on the ground acting out the role perfectly.
Anyone who has taught a dog to play dead knows it is harder than it looks. The dog has to drop on cue, stay down, and resist the urge to get up and see whether there is a treat in it for them. Minimus has made it his signature.
The actor and the lover
Their family's page sets the two of them up as a double act. Minimus is the performer. Evie, the page says, "is a lover and a licker", happy to go along with whatever is on the day's agenda, as long as it involves being close to someone.
And then the page tells you what really runs the house:
These two dachshunds (Minimus the Miniature) are constantly motivated by food.
If you have lived with a dachshund, you are nodding. The breed was developed in Germany to go to ground after badgers, which is where the name comes from: Dachs is German for badger. They were bred to be brave, determined and single-minded, and in most modern homes that single mind is fixed on the kitchen.
On the page
In the book, Evie and Minimus are held close by one of their people, who is laughing. One dachshund lies belly up in the crook of an arm, paws in the air; the other peers out from below, looking straight at the camera. It is one of those photographs where you can almost hear the room.
That is what Shoot the Dog set out to do: photograph dogs as their families know them, and let the families tell you the rest. Evie and Minimus are two of more than 250 dogs in Volume Two, each with a page of their own.