The Ferocious Veenertoof
The Ferocious Veenertoof or Saber-toothed Wiener Dog was the apex predator of the Pleistocene epoch. It fed on ice-age megafauna such as woolly mammoths, dire wolves, mastodons, cave bears, and even our own Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon ancestors.
Though small in size, the Veenertoof hunted in packs of several hundred animals that functioned like highly-efficient killing machines. Even a full-grown male mammoth could be dragged to the ground and stripped to the bone by a pack of Veenertoof, and done so within a matter of minutes not hours.
A famous Cro-Magnon mural in the Lascaux Caves in France depicts such a scene in grizzly detail.
In the foreground, a large mammoth runs in terror with at least 132 Veenertoof hanging from its hide like ticks while the rest of the pack tears at it from behind. A stain of red ocher trails the animals on the ground.
Nearby are the bloody bones of other recent victims. To the right, there are other packs of Veenertoof chasing smaller animals in the distance. To the left, a porcupine is molesting a gopher, but both animals appear to be staring at the carnage, frozen in their act of copulation.
Fun Fact:
In paleolithic art, the Veenertoof is always depicted with its mouth stained red with blood, and it is obvious that our ancestors lived in terror of this ferocious beast. For this reason, paleontologists speculate that the first European religions were based on rites conducted to appease the Veenertoof.
As evidence, they point to the old German custom of rubbing grandma with gravy and locking her outside on Veenertoofen Nacht as a means of improving the family’s luck for the year.
“Der feeding auf der Veenertoofen” is still celebrated on the evening of June 1st in large civic festivals (beer gardens). Everyone wears elaborate wiener dog costumes and pelts the grandmas with cocktail wieners.
The grandmas compete with each other to stay smiling no matter what because there is a lot of money at stake, and judges deduct points for every frown or scowl. There are large cash prizes for the winner who can smile the most and even for the runner up and third place.
Abspritzen or “Hosing Day” is the following day and as the name implies involves hosing down all the grandmas in the village square at the crack of dawn.
Each year on the morning of June 2nd, the gutters of Berlin are clogged with gravy and cocktail wieners, and you see all these people walking wiener dogs and letting them eat the gross shit right off the street. And everyone is hungover, and all the grandmas are wet and angry and yelling at people, and it is terrible. I don’t know why I go every year.
Habitat:
Extinct. Believed to have been displaced by either the saber-toothed guinea pig or the tricerapoodle.
More Improbable Creatures:
This trading card is part of a series titled “Uncle Joe’s Field Guide to Improbable Creatures” by Jethro Sleestak. View more Improbable Creatures.
