The Levitating Dachshund of Walla Walla and Other Doxie Ghost Stories
I love Dachshunds and I love ghost stories, so I was delighted to find out there are some ghost stories involving Dachshunds.
After writing about my own Electronic Voice Phenomena with my dead Dachshund, I was told about other ghost stories involving the long squat canine.
In the book Ghost Stories from the Pacific Northwest, there’s a story about a woman named Marsha Moore who moved into a house in Walla Walla, Washington and she quickly realized that the house was haunted. How?
Well, one night she saw her Dachshund named Gretchen levitating in the stairwell.
“She just started floating and then it was like something threw her back down the stairs,” Marsha reported. (The dog was all right.)
In The English Ghost: Spectres Through Time by Peter Ackroyd, there’s a ghost story among the many legends based in the countryside of England that includes a “phantom Dachshund that leads its owner to a vivisectionist’s house before vanishing.”
The story is part of a collection by ghost hunter Elliott O’Donnell who compiled his ghost pet stories in a book called “Animal Ghosts.” He wrote about “The Phantom Dachshunds of W Street, London” where people would see a Dachshund with a flashy color, and follow it to a house and then it would disappear. It turns out a gentleman who lived nearby lost a Dachshund and the house was owned by a famous German doctor who was known for his vivisection experiments. He would put raw meat out to trap stray dogs, and this Phantom Dachshund pointed him out from the great beyond.
Admittedly, it’s one of the less persuasive ghost stories.
There’s a website that includes pet ghosts called: Dream watch Pet Ghosts and Paranormal Animals. It’s a collection of many stories that detail how a beloved pet returns from the hereafter. On the site, “Janet in Florida” talks about regularly seeing the face of her late pet Dash her Dachshund, as well as her Pomeranian Pom Pom.
Some Dachshund owners have told me that they have had their little mongrels barking at an empty corner where there’s nothing there. (My dog Rudi, who lasted 18 years, was brought back to life with mouth-to-mouth after being lifeless in the pool for more than 10 minutes, and ever since then would stop and bark and follow seemingly nothing (but it was definitely something for him!)
Jenna and Dustin Meldgaard tell of a similar story of a blind and deaf mini Dachshund that would “bark as if she was being beaten up at the corner of the room. She started this right when her brother, a big yellow lab passed away at the house from a stroke.”
Dachshunds are good in “Ghost Hunter Training” according to a site. There’s a black and tan Dachshund who is a well trained ghost hunter who has been hunting with a group call GhostFinders most of her life in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The black Dachsie pictured above is named Lollipop and is a well-seasoned Ghost hunter. According to the website: “She has been hunting ghosts with her owner for over five years. Lollipop works with a small ghost hunter group called Ghost Finders from Scottsdale, AZ. She has chased ghosts as well as cornered them for the group to photographed and question them with EVP recorders and emf meters.”
The artist, known as Burriot Madness was inspired to create a Ghost Dachshund. Madness writes: “If your neck gets cold while you’re reading, don’t worry. Ghost Dachshund just wants to take a peek and snuggle.”
In his “Ghost and Spirits Insights” blog, ghost medium Rob Gutro tells a story about his friend Tom whose 14-year-old Dachshund named Rusty came back to them when they were together .
He recalls:
“When Tom and I were standing in our friend’s hallway and peering into the renovated bathroom, I was startled by a rustling sound right down the hall from where we were standing.
It was little Rusty’s spirit who came back to check in on his dad, and Rusty was playing with a toy or some paper (like a newspaper). I couldn’t see Rusty, but I certainly heard him and immediately sensed him (I got my tell-tale headache in the back of my head).
The noise he was making on the floor was about 10 feet from where I was standing! It’s a common occurrence for our pets to come back and keep us company from time to time once they’ve crossed over.”
Among the Ghost Stories of the Rio Grande Valley there’s a great story:
“My family and I lived in the apartments on sugar directly in front of what used be called teachers academy, not sure what it is named now. I fell very ill one day around four or five years old. I remember during the day both of my grandmothers came to see me and pray over me with an egg.
“I don’t remember what exactly I had but I remember being very weak. At night I ended sleeping in my patents bed with them since they did not want to move me. I remember opening my eyes and seeing purple figure flying around me.”
“It’ kind of hard to describe. It looked like a ghost but had a long body that resembles of a Dachshund.”
The children’s book Bunnicula series by James Howe started a spin-off series called Tales from the House of Bunnicula, which are “written” by Howie, the Dachshund puppy introduced into the series in Howliday Inn.
And of course, no Doxie story would be complete with a Crusoe the Dachshund video. Just for laughs.
And, don’t forget this holiday season of Dav Pilkey’s “Hallo-wiener,” the story of a Dachshund who wins the respect of one and all in spite of his unfortunate wiener dog costume.
And then, just for kicks, you’ll want to see video of the famous Dachshund attack by Higgins attacking a ghost on Norfolk Beach. It’s all caught on tape.
Other Scary, Creepy Stories . . .
Visits at the House on Fuller Street
The Stranger with Blue Eyes Visits Borneo
A Family Exorcism and My Uncle: The Pope of Park Slope
Hearing My Dead Dachshund at Hollywood’s Most Haunted Spot, The Roosevelt Hotel
