The Hot Dog Costume Prize Is Open to Irish Wolfhounds

Eleven of Saturday's prizes are for dachshunds only. One goes to a dog of any other breed dressed as a bun. The lot has no steps.

The lot behind the Barnstable County Courthouse is flat all the way around. Nothing to hop up onto, no stairs, just pavement circling the Registry of Deeds building off Route 6A. For a lot of the dogs that come here, that's the point.

"There's plenty of free parking and no steps," Eva Carbonaro told the Cape Cod Times in 2024. "We get dachshunds with wheels on the back if they have had back surgery." A dachshund is a long spine on short legs, and some of them arrive on carts. On this pavement, a dog on wheels can get from the parade to the café without anyone lifting it.

This Saturday, from noon to three, the lot at 3195 Main Street belongs to short dogs again. Cape Cod Doxie Day is free to get into, free to park at, and very serious about its prizes. One of those prizes is called Longest Doxie. That raises a question the organizers have never answered in print. How, exactly, do you measure a dachshund?

Start with the parade, because anyone can join it. The Weenieton Waddle and Waggin' Parade needs no registration, and it hands out three prizes. Best Dressed and Best Waggin', for decorated wagons, are for dachshunds. The third, Wiener Wannabe, is for a dog of any other breed dressed as a hot dog.

"We get tons of weiner wannabes, all kinds of dogs dressed in hot dog costumes," Carbonaro told the Times, and then came the line above. One year somebody built a Jaws wagon and dressed the dog as the shark. Another year it was a pirate ship. Parade winners get a medal and a custom portrait from Stefanie Shank, the Emmy-nominated Nickelodeon art director who draws the dachshunds of Weenieton.

Event listings say rescue dogs from Paw-Affection Dachshund Rescue will march again and the Cape Cod Ukulele Club will play. The organizer's own homepage promises the official Dachs-Song, so plan on singing.

Then there's the Doxie Dash. It runs in heats of five, 25 dachshunds in all, at a $30 donation per slot. Registration opens every June 21, National Dachshund Day, which the organizers point out is also the longest day of the year. In 2024, when a slot cost $25, the race sold out within the week. The 2026 Dash is sold out too. If your dog is fast and you missed June, what's left is a waitlist by email.

"You can always hear a dachshund," Carbonaro said, laughing, while her own three barked through that 2024 phone call. In a usual year, she said, about 400 people come, from all over the country.

It didn't start with 400.

It started with one dog. Carbonaro's dachshund Nathan was the reason she organized a meetup for dachshund owners in 2008, and it wasn't in Barnstable. "The first Cape Cod Doxie Day was in 2008 at Chapin Beach. We had 50 people," she told the Times. "There were a few of us that lived in the Mid-Cape area, so we decided to meet up at Chapin Beach in Dennis," she told Cape Cod Life. "Word spread, and next thing you know it became so much bigger than we thought it would be."

It moved to the Cape Cod Fairgrounds for a few years, then to the courthouse lot. It became Cape Cod Doxie Day Inc., an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) whose officers aren't paid. The keepsake booklet grew from four pages to 28, the Times reported in 2022, and Carbonaro said the hottest ticket that year was an auction for the right to put your dog on next year's cover. That same year the café set its tables at hound height. Dachshunds, she explained, are "very food driven."

Nathan died in 2023, at 16. He missed the brewery after-party, which started in 2024, and the beer with a dachshund on the label. The meetup he started comes back Saturday. Some event listings call it the 18th annual; the organizer's site doesn't give a number.

The contests are where people keep a straight face. The organizers list eleven categories, dachshunds only: Best Ears, Teeniest Weenie, Longest Doxie, Silver Senior, Owner/Pet Look Alike, Hairiest Hound, Best Trick, Best Kisser, Best in Show, Precious Puppy and Best Waddle. The 2021 winners are still posted. Best Waddle went to Remington Pearl of Marblehead. Best Ears went to Hank of Boston. Wiener Wannabe went to Ben, of South Hadley.

Admission, parking and the parade are free; the organizer says most contests and activities request a donation. The charity changes from year to year. In 2022 it was the Companion Animal Program in Orleans, and in 2024 the Sampson Fund for Veterinary Care. This year the money goes to the Cape Cod Disaster Animal Response Team. Volunteers will also collect packaged pet food and kitty litter for CCDART's Red's Pet Pantry, which was funded by a bequest from Redmond Bansfield and sends pet food to food pantries every month. Any well-behaved dog is welcome if it's vaccinated and on a leash that doesn't retract.

At three the party moves to Cape Cod Beer on Phinneys Lane, which the organizers call a two-minute drive. The brewery is releasing a Fest Bier called Dachtoberfest, and only 100 four-packs will be made. If you read our piece on the car show that raffles a freezer full of meat, you know the shape. The prize is the excuse, and the charity is the point.

Back to the question. The organizers have posted a rules page, an FAQ, a race registration form and that list of eleven categories. None of them says how Longest Doxie is judged. Tape measure, yardstick, nose to tail or by eye, it isn't written down. On the 2021 winners page, Longest Doxie doesn't appear at all.

So you'll have to go and watch.

The lot is flat for a reason. Everyone gets close enough to see, even the dogs who came on wheels.

Cape Cod Doxie Day | Barnstable County Courthouse complex, 3195 Main St. (Route 6A), Barnstable Village. All events take place behind the courthouse.
Saturday, Sept. 26, noon–3 p.m. · Free admission, free parking · Well-behaved dogs of any breed welcome, current on rabies, on a non-retractable leash or a locked lead of 6 feet max (rules) · Doxie Dash sold out; waitlist at [email protected] · Bring packaged pet food or kitty litter for Red's Pet Pantry · After-party from 3 p.m. at Cape Cod Beer, 1336 Phinneys Lane, Hyannis · ccdoxieday.com