[...] As to Cecilie's jokes on the subject of babies—there is nothing to the fore. We have no prospects of any human infancy, so we must do the best we can with dogs. We have another now, just six weeks old, a funny little beast, called Peps or "Striezel" because he looks like a puppy from a Striezel stall. He is better than the last, Robber, but it's a bad business that we have to put up with such mindless creatures. I would much rather have a Maxel—but that could only happen once in the world. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 73