Dachshund Puppies

Dachs and Hund

Very few breeds wear their job as a name. Dachs is the German word for badger, Hund the German word for dog, and the animal assembled under that label was meant to find a badger below ground and keep working once the daylight ran out. In Germany the breed is still called the Teckel, and it is still a hunting dog there.

Everything about the outline follows from the tunnel. The body runs long and the legs stay short because the passage underground is no wider than the dog itself. The chest is deep and carries a pronounced keel at the front, which gave the lungs somewhere to go in a tight space. The front feet are broad and paddle-shaped for shifting earth. The skin sits deliberately loose over the shoulders so the dog can turn around in a place with no room to turn around in. Even the voice makes engineering sense: it is far larger than the animal, because a handler standing on the surface had to work out where his dog had got to through several feet of soil.

The type was settled in Germany long before it travelled, and it travelled quickly once it did. Dachshunds were being registered with the American Kennel Club by 1885, and within a generation the breed had gone from a specialist working hound to one of the most recognizable silhouettes in dogs. What ends up on your sofa is that same design with the tunnel taken away, and you can see the whole of it in a puppy the first time it noses its way under a cushion.

The standard size, and the quarry that set it

There are two sizes in the American standard, and the difference between them is a difference of job rather than of fashion. The miniature is eleven pounds and under once the dog has turned a year old. The standard is the original article: sixteen to thirty-two pounds, standing somewhere around eight or nine inches at the shoulder, with heavy bone, a broad front and a surprising amount of muscle packed along that back.

None of that substance is decoration. A European badger is a large, powerfully built animal, and the hound sent down to face one needed real weight behind it. Standard Dachshunds also worked above ground in packs on wild boar, and they were used to follow a trail through woodland long after it had gone cold. This is a hound in the full sense of the word: nose first, stamina underneath, and no particular interest in giving up.

You feel all of that the first time you lift one. A standard Dachshund is a genuinely solid dog, and people who have only met the miniature are usually caught out by the weight. It is a two-arm job and a lap-and-a-half of dog, and it will happily arrange itself across both.

Three coats, and a paint box behind them

The smooth coat came first: short, dense and glossy, lying flat to the body, with the whole working outline showing straight through it. The wirehaired came later, with terrier stock behind it, and carries a hard, tight jacket over a finer undercoat, finished with a beard and a pair of bushy eyebrows that give the dog a permanently considered expression. The longhaired is sleek and softly waved, longest behind the ears, under the body, behind the legs and along the tail, where it hangs like a flag.

Colour is where the breed really opens up. Solid dogs come in red and in cream, running from a pale wheaten shade through to deep mahogany. Two-coloured dogs come in black, chocolate, blue and Isabella, each carrying tan or cream points above the eyes, along the muzzle and jaw, on the throat and chest and down the legs. Over the top of all of that sit the patterns — dapple, brindle, sable and piebald — in every degree from a light dusting to a bold splash.

Between two sizes, three coats, half a dozen colours and four patterns, two Dachshund puppies standing side by side in the same pen can look like different breeds altogether. Most people arrive with a firm idea of what they want and go home with something else.

The character that came with the shape

A Dachshund is bold, funny and entirely certain of its own standing. This is a dog that was bred to go into the dark by itself and make decisions down there with nobody to consult, and that self-belief is the first thing you notice about one. A Dachshund walks into a room as though the room had sent for it.

At home that turns into a deeply attached companion with a burrowing habit. Blankets, laundry piles, the gap between a cushion and the arm of the sofa, the whole length of your leg under a duvet — a Dachshund finds the warmest tunnel in the house and moves into it. The instinct never went anywhere. It simply changed materials.

There is a voice, too, and a bigger one than the outline suggests. A Dachshund will tell you the delivery van has pulled up, and it will tell you from the far end of the house. Most owners settle into the same routine: go and look together, thank the dog, get on with the day. Handled that way from the first week, the announcement stays short and the dog is satisfied that the message got through.

Grooming, walks and a day at home

Smooth coats want a rubber curry or a hound glove once a week, which lifts the loose hair and brings up a shine in the same pass. Longhaired coats want a comb two or three times a week through the feathering, plus a tidy from a groomer every couple of months. Wirehaired coats keep their texture with a strip a few times a year and a weekly comb through the beard, which collects breakfast. Whichever coat you end up with, ears get a wipe with a soft cloth while you are already brushing, nails get trimmed a little and often, and teeth are worth brushing from the first week so a puppy decides early that a toothbrush is simply another thing that happens.

Walks are best measured in interest rather than mileage. Two unhurried outings a day suit a standard Dachshund well, and the nose should be allowed to set the pace on at least one of them. In a Florida or Tennessee summer, the early and late hours are the pleasant ones for both of you, and a shaded route is worth a detour.

Give the digging somewhere to go and everybody is happier. A sandbox in the corner of the yard, a snuffle mat on the kitchen floor, a handful of kibble scattered in the grass, a biscuit hidden under one of three cups — a quarter of an hour of that does more for a Dachshund than twice as long spent marching. Evenings are for company. This is a dog that wants to be underfoot while dinner is made and horizontal against someone once it is eaten.

Come and meet the Dachshund puppies

A photograph flattens a Dachshund into a joke about sausages. In front of you it is a compact, muscular, unexpectedly heavy hound with a serious nose, a level stare and a great deal to say for itself, and the coat and colour you came in for tend to change the moment a different puppy leans on your ankle.

Our Dachshund puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you how a particular puppy has been getting on with people. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit on the floor and let a puppy come to you before deciding anything. Find directions and hours, and ask about financing while you are here. Every puppy here goes home with its vet records, its vaccination history and a health warranty, and our team will walk you through what those cover.