Melbourne may host an array of high-profile sporting events, but it somehow has never previously managed to cajole a group of sausage-shaped dogs in fancy dress down a 15 metre-long racetrack.
This glaring oversight was mercifully remedied by the inaugural Running of the Wieners, an auspicious event conducted on a wedge of concrete beside the Yarra River on Saturday.
A total of 54 dachshunds competed in a series of heats, grouped by age and disability, for the Oktoberfest-related races. A further 100 sausage dogs, including my own, had attempted to enter but were politely turned away due to the demand.
It’s clear many sausage dog owners in Melbourne are not messing around in devotion to their pets. Many of the elongated canines were dressed in intricately crafted costumes, with their owners hovering around them proudly, struggling to maintain the air of urbane insouciance this city excels in.
“I really do think this will be the new spring racing carnival, I really do,” Maz Violi tells me.
Violi’s dog, Sassy, is a diminutive puppy about to take part in her first heat. Rather than a regimen of hamstring stretches and lunges, Sassy is having her neckerchief altered as she attempts to sniff the undercarriage of my dog, Otis.
“She does normally have the neckerchief on, yes,” Violi says. Will she race in that? Violi looks at me. “No. She’ll be dressed as a Ninja Turtle. Donatello. I’ll just have to take the bandana off.”
Sassy has a full wardrobe of denim jackets, dresses and hats, her gleeful owner tells me. She even has her own Instagram account. I ponder my place in a world where a dog in a cocktail dress has an Instagram account but I don’t. What does this mean? Does it mean anything? I feel slightly bereft in my confusion.
I survey the field of sausage dogs, some clearly honed athletes and others merely here for the “best dressed” competition that will provide a horse racing-style accompaniment to proceedings. A small podium has been erected for the winners next to a white picket fenced area where the dogs will run or parade, depending on their inclinations.
There’s a dog dressed as a shark, another as a crocodile. One dog is a beach lifeguard, complete with hat, while there is a hot dog bun encasing another. Some owners opt for transport themes – a Melbourne tram encases one sausage dog while, ominously, another is placed inside a Soviet tank, seemingly ready for a cold war-era military parade.
Steve McInnes’s dog Snausage is dressed as a taco. McInnes himself is wearing a poncho and sombrero to round out the Mexican theme.
“We were going to come as Germans,” McInnes says, carefully eying the crowd. “But we were concerned there will be too many Germans here so we needed to do something different.”
This isn’t Snausage’s first rodeo. He’s competed in Geelong and Port Fairy, ably assisted by legs much longer than your standard sausage dog.
“He’s pretty fast,” McInnes says. “They are cute dogs, very cuddly. They are good companions.”
In a cruel twist for Snausage, it’s a dog dressed in lederhosen that wins the best dressed competition. An entrant that one might call the crowd’s favourite, Chilli, comes in third. Chilli is dressed as a biker, complete with leather jacket and goggles.
Chilli’s owner, Hayley, trained her by riding a motorcycle around a farm for Chilli to chase.
The races are watched by a clamouring, claustrophobic crowd, huddled together in the spring sunshine. One heat has a false start but otherwise it goes smoothly, despite the occasional entrant running back to the starting line rather than to their owner at the finish.
An 11-month-old dog called Cooper ultimately wins first place. Cooper’s owner, Georgia Anile, is presented with a plate of sausages – naturally – to mark this achievement.
By this time some dogs were getting a little fed up. Dachshunds are wonderful dogs but are prone to recalcitrance, which can only be exacerbated when your human companion forces you to wear fairy wings, or a tiny jockey on your back.
It was time to move on to a sausage eating competition (no dogs involved, thankfully) and ponder the lessons learned.
Scott Highfield, manager of Hophaus, the German-themed restaurant that organised the race, predicts the event will return next year at a larger venue.
“This should be pretty good for business,” Highfield, decked out in lederhosen, tells me, . “Unfortunately, as a licensed restaurant, we can’t have the dachshunds come back and eat with us. But it’s all good fun. This is Melbourne. Anything goes, really.”
