Legends of Advertising

Just got back from a trip to Ohio and Illinois. In Findlay, Ohio we filmed the National Dachshund Races - an annual event that draws 200+ dogs from surrounding states for the title of fastest wiener in the Northeast.

After that we headed to Hinsdale, Illinois, where we interviewed Terry Baker and Dan Heagy, two retired ad execs who were the creators of the famous Miller Lite wiener dog racing ad that Ad Age has listed as one of the top ten advertising campaigns in history. It's pretty funny listening to these two guys - you can see why they were behind so many fun campaigns - their sense of humor is pretty warped.

Terry and Dan - advertising legends

Now I'm back in California and relaxing. To date I've travelled over 8,000 miles - and we're only 2/3 of the way through our shoots. I guess I should have tried to get an airline to sponsor me...

Noodles makes it!!!

Wow! We now have two dogs in the national finals this December. Tonight Noodles lived up to his reputation and placed second in the qualifiers, meaning he secured a berth to the championships.

Noodles and 9 month old phenom
Kelly advance to the finals

I'm so excited! One dog in the finals was great - two is even better. We now have a 2/13 chance of one of our dogs winning it all. You gotta love it! Lady Luck is definitely on our side.

Interview With A Giant

Today we shot an interview with Ron and Betty Rowland, and Baron, considered by most to be the greatest racing wiener dog in the history of the sport. A *very* large standard doxie, Baron dwarfs most other dachshunds, which undoubtedly helped with his victories, but as Ron says, it's the winning spirit that Baron has that drove him to win.


Baron was so successful that race organizers began to change rules and eventually banned him from the races. This was one of my favorite interviews and I can't wait to get into the edit suite to cut it.

Doping and wiener dogs

A few months ago we heard allegations of doping within the wiener dog racing community, so we decided to head up to the UCLA Olympic Drug Testing Lab to do an interview with the world's leading expert on doping on sports - Dr. Don Caitlin. He was not an easy guy to get access to, so we were pleasantly surprised when he accepted our invitation.

The "big dog" in the world of anti-doping

We're going to post his interview online for people to watch - he's got some interesting things to say on doping in sports.

Hailey gets cut...

We just got back from Phoenix. What a hellish trip. We encountered one of Arizona's famous thunderstorms on our way in, and ended up driving the final 50 miles into Phoenix at an average of 15 mph. We also encountered a horrific traffic accident. Being an ex-firefighter, I stopped to help and gave first aid to the driver until the fire department arrived. After we got the driver extricated and airlifted out, I asked my cameraman Joe if he had gotten any of it on film. Uh, no... Grrrrr.

Luckily the rain held off for the races at the Phoenix Greyhound Park. Our local dog, Hailey, was in the lead in the first race, when she was attacked by the dog behind her. She still placed second, and advanced to the final race of the day, but was again attacked, and this time stopped to retaliate. Sadly, she didn't win - and was controversially knocked out.

Hailey seems down after her controversial loss

The ride back was less eventful, but nonetheless, unpleasant. The radiator started acting up, so we needed to have the heater on full blast as we drove through the desert to keep the car from overheating. Yuck!

I'm going to spend the day bathing in ice cubes to see if I can get my core body temperature back to a health 102 degrees...