ohmidog!

 
Just when I proclaim this quite a week for wieners (dogs and franks), there’s more late breaking wiener news: The world’s oldest hot dog — possibly the world’s first hot dog — has been unearthed at Coney Island, CNN and others reported.

CNN posted a story about the “discovery” of a “140-year-old hot dog” after officials at the Coney Island History Project put an “ancient” frankfurter — bun and all — on display, saying it was unearthed during the demolition of Feltman’s Kitchen, said to be where the first hot dog was made.

“1st Hot Dog,” read a sign next to the display. To the embarassment of CNN and others who picked up the story — to be frank, they didn’t check the facts — it was all just a publicity stunt, aimed at creating interest in an exhibition this summer of real artifacts from the Feltman’s site, the New York Post says.

“The recent discovery by an amateur archaeologist of the ‘140 Year Old Feltman’s Hot Dog’ encased in ice along with a bun, [and] an original receipt from Feltman’s, … was a publicity stunt in the grand tradition of Coney Island ballyhoo,” said Tricia Vita, spokeswoman for the history project.

She said that the hoax was an example of Coney Island’s history of P.T. Barnum-type hype. Even though the ancient hot dog was said to be found “encased in ice” by archaelogists, the story was gobbled right up.

(It was Barnum, I believe, who said a sucker was born every minute. That rate has increased to about every millisecond, thanks to the Internet.)

“I was surprised in the beginning at how many people believed it was true,” Vita said. “But after reading all the buzz about it on Twitter and the Internet, I’m not really that surprised because people want to believe these types of things are true.”

 
Choked on a wiener. Blinded by a wiener. Saved by a wiener. Bitten by a wiener. It has been a big news week for wieners, both the food and the dog — enough fodder (which I believe is the top listed ingredient in hot dogs) to hold our own Wiener Awards.

So without further ado, the envelopes please.

Our first category — Best Wiener in a Supporting Roll …

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)

 
A persistent dachschund saved a Washington family from a potentially damaging fire in their mobile home Sunday.

A 3-year-old dachshund named JoJo — who the family took home after finding him as a stray — is being credited for trying to shove 11-year-old Kalen Huntley out of her bed and alerting her parents to an electrical fire smoldering behind an outlet on her bedroom wall.

“Our dog saved our house,” Diane Urquhart, who lives in a mobile home park in Kennewick with her husband, Colt, and four of their five children, told the Tri-City Herald.

The couple and three of the kids were home early Sunday when JoJo, who normally sleeps in their daughter Kalen’s room, began repeatedly coming out the room and approaching the adults.

“He came out to see us four times, then kept going back into our daughter’s room,” Mrs. Urquhart said. On top of that, his ears weren’t in their happy position, she said.

“These ears we did not recognize,” she said. “And his face, if a dog can look worried, he looked worried.”

When she went into her daughter’s room, she smelled burning rubber and saw the dog nudging her sleeping daughter with his nose.

They called 911, and got everybody out of the house, taking their two cats and JoJo.

Urquhart said the wall at the head of her daughter’s bed was hot. Firefighters told the family the outlet, which had a lamp and alarm clock plugged into it, was minutes away from catching fire. When the family removed the outlet the next day, one side of it was scorched.

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)

(Photo: Courtesy of Tri-City Herald)

 
Does the hot dog need a makeover?

The nation’s largest pediatricians group thinks so. The American Academy of Pediatrics — un-American as it may sound —  is calling for sweeping changes in the way the hot dog is designed to minimize children’s chances for choking.

In a policy statement issued earlier this week, the group identified the hot dog as the greatest food-related choking hazard to children, particularly those ages 3 and younger, and said the shape plays a large role in making it unsafe.

The academy proposes warning labels be placed on hot dogs, and that consideration be given to manufacturing them — gasp! — in the shape of a patty.

The academy cited statistics showing 17 percent of food-related choking deaths among children come from from hot dogs. Other common food choking hazards include grapes, apples, popcorn and nuts, the group said. Of the 141 choking deaths in kids 14 and under in 2006, 61 were food-related, according to an Associated Press story.

The doctors say high-risk foods — including hot dogs, raw carrots, grapes and apples – should be served to small children in pea-sized pieces to reduce chances of choking.

We’d agree with that much, but we think it’s up to parents, as opposed to the government, to see that  their childrens’ food is cut into manageable pieces.

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)

A fan has sued the Kansas City Royals, claiming a hot dog thrown by the team’s mascot, Sluggerrr, struck him in the eye and detached his retina.

According to the lawsuit, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court, John Coomer was attending a night game Sept. 8 at Kauffman Stadium and was sitting about six rows up from the third-base dugout.

During a break in the action, Sluggerrr mounted the dugout and began blasting ’dogs into the stands with an air gun. Then he began throwing food into the stands with his paws, The Kansas City Star reported.

“While doing so, (Sluggerrr) attempted to throw a hot dog into the stands with a throw behind his back,” the lawsuit alleged. “Instead of throwing the hotdog at an arch high into the stands, (Sluggerrr) lost control of his throw, or was reckless with his throw, and threw the hot dog directly into plaintiff, who was sitting a few feet away.”

Coomer says the hot dog struck his left eye and led to a detached retina and cataracts. His medical costs so far exceed $25,000, he says.

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)

Paco Sosa, reportedly New York’s oldest dog, died last week.

The dachshund, owned by Bernadine Santistevan, of the upper East Sice, was 20 years old and five months in human years, according to the New York Daily News.

“He was such a gift in my life,” said Santistevan, who met the dachshund when he was a month-old. “He taught me that all life is precious. He was amazing in that respect.”

Paco Sosa had been having frequent seizures and neck pain for over a year, and suffered a particularly bad convulsion three weeks ago.

Santistevan said her dog was put down at a veterinary hospital. “He was very peaceful, very happy,” she said. “He let me know it was time to let go.”

Santistevan plans a “celebration party” in coming weeks for Paco Sosa, whose ashes she plans to scatter in the mountains around Taos, N.M.

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)

Spork is a 10-year-old, 17-pound dachshund who, after biting a veterinary technician during oral surgery, has been labeled vicious and faces the possibility of being euthanized.

That possibility is being opposed by thousands of Facebook friends, as well as Spork’s owners, who refuse to accept their dog is vicious.

“Every night I tuck him into bed. If he doesn’t have a blanket on him, he starts crying, I have to get up and make sure he’s covered,” Kelly Walker, Spork’s owner says.

She and her husband Tim are charged with having a vicious dog, after taking their dog to the Jasper Animal Hospital in Lafayette, Colo., for dental surgery. “I was holding him and he bit her on the chin,” Kelly Walker says. She  says the vet tech got too close to Spork’s face with some scissors, which scared him.

According to the Boulder Daily Camera, the technician lost pieces of her lips and was treated at Boulder Community Hospital.

The veterinary clinic notified animal control about the bite.

Colorado law excludes those who work with animals in veterinarian offices from pressing charges in animal bite cases. But Lafayette’s local laws, which take precedence, include a vicious animal law that doesn’t have a similar exclusion.

Jennifer Edwards, the lawyer representing the Walkers, said the charges should be dismissed: “The case should have never happened,” she said. “Bites are just an assumed risk of a veterinary technician. It’s the name of the game.”

Thousands of people are rallying around Spork and a  “Save Spork” Facebook page has drawn more than 8,000 members, many urging people to boycott the Jasper Animal Hospital or the city itself.

The Walkers say they’ll do anything to make sure their dog isn’t euthanized, including spending their life savings or moving out of town.

(Click here for all of the Wiener Awards.)