Photos by Ty Fife

Last Saturday during Oktoberfest, people ate hot dogs, drank beer and yelled at strangers’ wieners.

The sixth annual Wiener Dog Race had more dogs registered in the miniature division than before and brought dogs in an array of costumes from the traditional hotdog to new Halloween-season costumes like shark and horse jockey.

Mike Longworth dressed his dog Buddy as a hotdog and raced him on a whim.

“We [Longworth and his son Mike] really didn’t do much in preparation. We just signed up for Buddy to race last night,” Longworth said. “He’s pretty fast, and we already had the hotdog costume for Halloween.”

Other competitors had more dedicated dogs. Standard dachshund Rocco Turbo Ray participated in the race for the third time and just turned three in August.

“He’s just a really good runner — he’s a natural,” Rocco’s owner, Cassandra Ray, said. “He knows to run straight to his mom. He placed second last year, but only because he didn’t completely cross the finish line.”

There were three competition divisions: Puppy, miniature and standard. Each division had separate heats within it.

In the miniature and standard divisions, each pup raced in his or her heat twice, and the winner moved on the the semifinals. During the semifinals, the winner of each heat raced the winner of another heat in the same division and so on until there was only one dog remaining in each division.

Unfortunately, both Rocco and Buddy lost in their heats and did not continue on in hopes of becoming Grand Champion.

For the miniature division, the winning dog was Moose, the 2-year-old brown Dachshund.

“It’s his first year competing, and we’ve had some great competition so far,” Moose’s owner, Mandy Esser, said.

The winner of the standard bracket was Jurgen, who has quite the dramatic backstory.

“It was my dad’s service dog. He passed away, and I took him [Jurgen],” Jurgen’s owner, Barbara Bourke, said.

Before then, Bourke knew nothing about Dachshunds or the race until her veterinarian told her about it last year, where Jurgen made it into the semifinals.

This year, Bourke’s friend, who was going to place Jurgen in the racing stall, was in a car wreck and was unable to participate. Bourke then spoke to a friendly stranger who agreed to help with Jurgen’s race.

With a stranger at her side, Bourke kept Jurgen calm, cool and collected as he ran into the championship against novice competitor Moose.

The championship was supposed to be just one run across the finish line, but Moose and Jurgen crossed the line at the same time twice.

For the third race, the announcer counted down, the gate was lifted, the crowd cheered and Moose beat Jurgen by a paw.

“I am so happy and surprised Moose won,” Esser said. “I can’t believe they had to race three times, but it made it even better.”

Esser said she plans to train with Moose for next year’s race as Moose walked away with a Grand Champion trophy, a new dog bed, medallions and treats.

wkidd@mavs.coloradomesa.edu