28d • Breed of the Week
Dachshund
The Dachshund is yet another German breed (my goodness Germany thank you but also chill lol) that has been around for centuries with their first “official” appearance around 1700. The word dachshund means “badger dog” in German and this described what a dog did versus what a dog looked like. Prior to the year 1700 there were apparently images of dogs that were described as “badger dogs” but they did not look like the Dachshund we know today.
The dogs described as badger dogs starting in 1700 were depicted as “low in stature with long slender bodies and somewhat bent front feet.” The Dachshund comes in a variety of coats, colors and sizes with the smooth coated standard being the original ones. The coats are smooth, longhair and wirehair and their colors range from brown, black, brindle and dapple and sizes are standard and mini. I do know that for those of us in the United States the Miniature Dachshund is more commonly seen than the standard variety.
With Dachshunds being the last breed standing to keep their descriptive breed’s name in they are known by other names in Germany itself and that is either Dackel or Teckel depending on where in Germany you are. It does appear that in English speaking countries like the US, England, Australia and Canada the name Dachshund stayed and are nicknamed “wiener dog” or “sausage dog”.
Now on to what they were bred to do. These oddly shaped little dogs needed to have quite the personality and physical capabilities to be able to handle fighting badgers head on in underground tunnels so they were bred with that task in mind. Everything about the Dachshund had to fit the bill for the task starting with their legs needing to be short so they could fit into the tunnels including the curvature of how their legs fit around their ribcage, the shape of the ribcage itself to protect internal organs from possible debris puncture and their mandibular jaw being well hinged and overall remarkably large teeth so they could “give back as good as it got”. Given the nature of their work environment they also needed to be “independent, bold and not a little bit combative” with them being described as “courageous to the point of rashness”.
That is quite a bit of dog compacted into such a small, but purposely built for the job, body and based on the ones I have met they have not lost their personality of “bold” “rashness” even after all of these years.
The Miniature Dachshund was a response to a huge influx of rabbits in Germany along with other small game. According to one source the minis were also a response to taking the standards out of places with sandy soil as apparently the standards would get trapped in burrows by cave-ins. The other reason minis now exist is due to breeders giving away the “runts” to people who lived in the city. People in the city were more likely to want to participate in dog shows and after some success the decision to breed minis and standards emerged. Some breeders tried to take a “shortcut” and breed Standard Dachshunds with toy breeds of dogs but this resulted in a lack of a desire to work and a lack of the physical characteristics that was bred into the standards to decrease their chance of injuries while hunting.
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Dachshund
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