Local dachshunds will race to be the hottest dog in Saturday’s Wiener Nationals

By Hillary DavisStaff Writer

July 18, 2018 4:45 PM PT

It’ll be wiener take all Saturday at Los Alamitos Race Course as the annual Wienerschnitzel Wiener Nationals crown the most dashing dachshund.

Baby Bo of Costa Mesa will be back to defend his title against the dozens of other doxies expected to tackle the series of 50-yard races at the Cypress track.

Baby Bo — 18 pounds of lean dachshund muscle — figures to be tough to beat. The 2-year-old black-and-tan won his preliminary heat last year with what may be a Wiener Nationals record time of 5.8 seconds, then took the final in 7.05 seconds.

He’s enhanced his racing resumé since then, winning the 2017 Hall-O-Wiener and the 2018 Spring Bark, both at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia.

But his owners, Eddie and Kat Kirshner, don’t train him. They just show him his Frisbee.

Kat Kirshner said Baby Bo is obsessed with his flying disc. He grew up with a Labrador and took on the retriever trait.

When he snatches the full-size disc — no scaled-down version for him — it covers his whole face.

“I don’t think he knows he’s racing,” Kirshner said. “When he’s lined up with the other dogs, he doesn’t want anyone else to grab his Frisbee.”

One of his challengers is Molly, a 1½-year-old black-and-tan Huntington Beach “tweenie” — smaller than a standard dachshund, bigger than a miniature — who has built quite a track record of her own.

Molly dominates the dachshund races at Huntington’s Old World dining and entertainment village, where she competes alongside her littermate Missy, according to her owner, Katie Cantwell.

Missy, who is owned by Cantwell’s friend, won’t be at the Wiener Nationals. But Molly’s special treat, appropriately an all-beef hot dog, will be at the finish line.

“I think she’s connected the racing,” Cantwell said. “She can only have that when she races.”

Whether it’s Baby Bo, Molly or another fleet-pawed pup, the winning dog will earn a $1,000 cash prize, a doghouse in the A-frame shape of a Wienerschnitzel restaurant and a fetching doggy jacket — in mustard yellow and ketchup red — that declares its wearer the “Champion of Champions.”

The event’s other winner is the Seal Beach Animal Care Center, which has picked up more than $250,000 in donated proceeds since the Wiener Nationals started in 1996.

This year’s Wiener Nationals are expected to raise $12,000 through ticket and T-shirt sales, plus a $5,000 donation by Los Alamitos Race Course.