Friday night began with a shot lightbulb.

You know what goes well with coffee? Dogs. At least, that’s the idea behind ParkGrounds, the combination coffee shop/dog park that I dragged my friends to this weekend. And the shop owners are right to have faith in this business model–watching the variety of dogs that folks brought by was approximately 800% more entertaining than just coffee alone. (Particularly the mastiff puppy who just wanted to take a nap, because d’aw.)

The reason that I was at ParkGrounds in the first place was in order to creep on the event hosted by DREAM Rescue, the local dachshund  rescue group. I’ve been looking at their adoptable dogs while killing time at work over the last week*, and since they were having a get-together I decided to drop by.

Dog rescue events are great fun, in part because the folks who run dog rescues tend to be (not surprisingly) really nice. But there’s a second component, which is that dog breeds are much cuter when there’s 20 of the dogs out. This is why the greyhound rescue events my family has attended have been so fun. Well, that and the fact that they greyhounds are usually made to wear hats. Hilarious.

So, amongst the hounds and miniature pinschers that were in the park, my friends and I got to see a herd of dachshunds wandering around like tiny sheep. It was super cute. Some of them had tiny vests. Others curled up under the park’s big tree. Several of them made friends with the great dane puppy that was nearby. (One of them was subsequently drooled on by the great dane, which he seemed to take stoically.)

The whole event was kind of strange to be at, because dog park etiquette, much like playground etiquette, demands that you have a dog. I understand this rule in the case of children, but god only knows how you’re supposed to figure out how you feel about a breed without seeing them in action. But the DREAM folks were very patient with the weirdo girl who just wanted to pet their dogs and ask about barking, for which I thank them. One of the foster dogs even hung out with me and let me pet her. She was the freaking cutest.

Between watching the dogs and spending Friday night out at Sister Louisa’s Church of the Living Room and Ping Pong Emporium (where I finished my sangria looking deeply into the eyes of a black velvet painting of MLK, Jr.), I think I had an appropriately Atlanta weekend. Because there is nothing that we love quite like weirdo theme bars and dogs except–maybe–improv comedy and roller derby. And WaHo. Okay, so we like a lot of things–but the dogs and the theme bars certainly made this weekend totally excellent.

* No, I’m probably not getting a dog.