Miles the sausage dog may only be small but that did not stop him from wanting to do guard duties. So determined was he to be the family guard dog, that his owners built him a ramp, especially for the job.
Owner Jenna Johnson, 38, who works as an assistant to a health insurance agent, said that Miles was always “very alert” and would lay by their backyard gate watching the road. “Anytime he noticed movement, he would bark and run to get me to check it out with him,” she said.
Persisting until she got up and acknowledged what he was seeing and either dealt with it or told him it was okay, Johnson realized her feisty dachshund was taking his sentry post seriously.
“Once I realized what he was trying to tell me, and that this behavior wasn’t a fluke but something that he was genuinely interested in, I found it heartwarming that he had found his purpose and was going to do this job no matter what,” she said.
Johnson has been extremely close to three-year-old Miles ever since he was a pup. She met him the day after he was born, on Nov. 9, 2019—and it was “love at first sight.” Since bringing him to her Oregon home when he was weaned at three months, Johnson and Miles have constantly been together.
Often she’ll lay on the ground to play with him. At one point, she started to notice how the little dog was seeing and experiencing the world. Miles was and is comfortable using ramps to get on and off the family’s bed, couch, and chairs, so Johnson thought why not build something to “help him elevate his guard dog duties.”
That was when Johnson’s husband and father-in-law stepped in. At first, they all laughed and joked over the novel idea, but before long, the brainstorming began. The priority was making something safe—and they weren’t yet sure if Miles would attempt to jump down off the structure.
“My father-in-law took it upon himself to find some spare wood we had around the house, and ran to a hardware shop to get the braces,” Johnson said.
The ingenious trio placed stiff plastic mesh as a railing, and added roof shingles and paint stir sticks on the ramp to help keep Miles from sliding when he was getting down. And voilà—they had a neat, custom-designed walkway.
Miles loved it instantly. His owners placed him on top of the fence to see how he would react, and, after a couple of timid steps, the sweet sausage realized how much he could see.
Confident that their pup wasn’t scared, Johnson, her husband, and father-in-law finished up the final bits of construction to make it usable—and the official first trial run was attempted.
“With just a couple of treats and a lot of ‘who’s a good boy,’ he got all the way up to the top,” Johnson said.
“To test him and see if they could trust him to have some self-preservation, several tricks were deployed to see if he would jump down from the top. If he showed interest, then or now, in trying to jump off of it, we would take it down and he would never be allowed up again.”
“It has been an honor to share him with the world and know that so many people care about him,” she said.
Johnson says she doesn’t know how to put into words the bond she and Miles share, “other than it feels like he is a cartoon dog that came to life.”
“It’s amazing to see such a big personality in such a little body,” she said. “One of the greatest joys in my life recently is being able to share the love of Miles to everyone in the world, and to show that no matter what your size, as long as you have someone who believes in you, you can do it.”
