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Who doesn’t want a lotta wiener dogs? BYLINE: John Kelso, AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Like Darrell Royal says, you gotta dance with the one who brung ya. Even if the one who brung ya is shaped like a foot-long from Sonic and has a stomach that drags on the ground. To promote the Buda Lions Club's annual Wiener Dog Races, this small town just south of Austin may soon be peppered with statues of the canine world's low rider, the dachshund. Warren Ketteman wants to see 25 to 50 slightly larger-than-life statues of wiener dogs scattered around Buda. Ketteman, Buda's executive director of economic development, is looking for an artist to make a casting of a wiener dog, from which the artworks would be made. Then the statues of the annoying little hot dogs could be sold to sponsors, who could put them in front of their businesses or civic clubs or whatever. "I would love to entertain the thought of doing wiener dogs on parade," Ketteman said. He sees the project as a way to draw attention to Buda, which will hold its eighth annual Wiener Dog Races on April 23-24 in City Park. In this event, dachshunds race out of a gate over a 60-foot course. For two days, it's just win, place or poop. Some of the dog owners entice their wiener dogs to run faster by standing at the end of the course and making "eekey eekey" sounds by squeezing squeaky toys. Others holler stuff out to their dogs like, "Here, Schatzi. Here, Schatzi." Now that the Shrimp Farm is gone, it's the biggest game in town. The event even inspired Buda Mayor John Trube and his wife, Elise Ballard, to produce a 24 1/2-minute DVD "dachumentary" about the races called "Lord of the Wiens." The blurb on the DVD's box describes the documentary as " 'Best in Show' meets 'Hands on a Hardbody.' " "Hey, this is serious stuff here," Ketteman said. "We're racing wiener dogs, man. In Buda, wiener dogs are like NASCARs. When you're the Wiener Dog Capital of Texas, you've got to live up to the name." Ketteman points out that other towns have made hay out of multiple statues of various critters and placing them around their communities. "I know Cincinnati did pigs," Ketteman said. And Chicago did cows. "People from all over the place were descending on downtown Chicago again to see the cows, for no other specific reason," Ketteman said. Ketteman envisions a wiener dog statue beauty contest of sorts pitting the various businesses that buy them against one another. The businesses could commission artists to decorate them. When the big Cabela's outdoor store opens in Buda, it could put its dog in hiking shorts and a Tyrolean hat. Ketteman "is full of artsy ideas," said Joellen Simmons, a Buda artist and a member of the town's planning committee for fine arts. "We're open to anything. We've talked about having Oscar Mayer come in for the contest." More than 400 dachshunds are expected to run in the races this year, said Bobbie Lenz, who runs the event. Previously, owners were allowed to coax their dogs to get a move on with food bribes, but that is no longer permitted. "The other dogs would chase the parents with the food, so we had to eliminate food," Lenz explained. "One guy brought a T-bone steak. He couldn't get the other dog's teeth out of the steak, so he got upset because his dog couldn't get to his steak." Mayor Trube said the idea of placing wiener dog statues around town sounded good to him as long as they were "close to actual size" and not "too obtrusive." "We don't need to be known as the Home of the Big Wiener, or anything like that — officially, anyway," he said. John Kelso's column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 445-3606 or jkelso@statesman.com. |