Mini Dachshund Puppies

Named for the badger

The Dachshund is one of the very few breeds whose name is also its job description. Dachs is German for badger and Hund is German for dog, and the animal was put together in Germany several centuries ago to follow a badger down into its own tunnel and carry on working once it got there.

Every line of the dog comes out of that job. The body is long and the legs are short because the work happened in a space no wider than the dog’s own shoulders. The chest is deep and keeled, which gave the lungs room underground. The front feet are broad and turned slightly out, because a hound that goes to ground does its own digging. The skin sits loosely over the shoulders so the dog can turn around in a tight place. Even the voice makes sense: it is remarkably large for the size of the animal, because a handler standing on the surface needed to hear it through several feet of earth.

The type was well fixed in Germany by the 1800s and travelled quickly once it left. The American Kennel Club recognized the Dachshund in 1885, and the Dachshund Club of America was founded ten years after that. What ends up on your sofa is that same working outline with the tunnel taken away, and you can see the entire design in a puppy the first time it noses its way under a cushion.

Miniature by design

The miniature is not a shrunken novelty. It was developed to work smaller quarry — rabbit and hare — in narrower burrows, and it was bred down with care so that the proportions stayed correct rather than merely small.

In the American standard, the Miniature Dachshund is the variety that weighs eleven pounds and under once the dog has turned a year old. The standard variety runs from sixteen to thirty-two pounds. A grown Mini stands somewhere around five or six inches at the shoulder and travels comfortably under one arm, though most of them would very much rather walk.

That size is a large part of the appeal. A Mini Dachshund suits a small apartment and a big house equally well, packs into a car without ceremony, and is an easy dog to carry up a flight of stairs. What it is not is small in personality. There is a complete, full-sized hound inside that outline, and that is the part people fall for.

Three coats and a paint box of colours

The breed comes in three coats, and choosing between them is one of the pleasures of shopping for a Dachshund.

The smooth coat is short, dense and glossy, lying close to the body, and it asks almost nothing of you. The longhaired coat is sleek and slightly waved, longest under the neck, along the underside of the body, behind the legs and on the ears, with a flag of hair on the tail. The wirehaired coat is a short, hard, tight outer jacket over a finer undercoat, finished with a beard and a pair of bushy eyebrows that give the dog a thoroughly opinionated expression.

Owners will tell you the coats come with tempers attached: long-coats the gentle ones, wires the comedians, smooths somewhere in the middle. It is folklore rather than science, and it is repeated so often because there is usually something in it.

The colours run wide. Single-coloured dogs come in red and cream, from a light wheaten shade through to a deep mahogany. Two-coloured dogs come in black, chocolate, blue and Isabella, each carrying tan or cream points over the eyes, on the sides of the muzzle and jaw, on the throat and chest, and down the legs. On top of the colours sit the patterns: dapple, brindle, sable and piebald. Between three coats, half a dozen colours and four patterns, no two litters look the same.

The personality that came with the shape

A Mini Dachshund is bold, funny and thoroughly convinced of itself. This is a hound that was bred to go into the dark on its own and make decisions down there, and the confidence that job required is still very much in the dog. It walks into a room as though it has been sent for.

At home that translates into a companion who wants to be involved in whatever you are doing. Dachshunds are affectionate in a burrowing sort of way — under the blanket, inside the laundry basket, along the length of your leg, into the gap behind you on the sofa. The tunnelling instinct never went anywhere; it simply moved indoors and found soft furnishings.

The nose is still working too, and it is worth giving it something to do. Scatter a handful of kibble in the grass, hide a treat under one of three cups, take the next street over instead of the usual block. Twenty unhurried minutes of nose work satisfies a Dachshund far more than twice as long spent marching.

They also make excellent company for a household with visitors. A Mini Dachshund will let you know when someone is at the door, in a voice that arrives well before the dog does, and then get on with being charming.

Grooming, week by week

Smooth coats are the easy end of the scale: a rubber curry or a hound glove once a week lifts the loose hair and brings up a shine at the same time, and most dogs fall asleep partway through.

Longhaired coats want a comb two or three times a week, working through the feathering behind the ears, on the chest, behind the legs and along the tail. It takes ten minutes and it keeps everything smooth. Many owners settle into a grooming appointment every couple of months to tidy the feet and the trousers.

Wirehaired coats keep their texture with a strip or a tidy from a groomer a few times a year, plus a weekly brush and a comb through the beard, which collects breakfast.

The rest is the same for all three. Ears get a wipe with a soft cloth while you are already brushing. Nails grow quickly on a dog that sits this close to the ground, so trim a little and often rather than waiting for a session. Teeth are worth brushing from the very first week, so that a puppy decides early that the toothbrush is simply another thing that happens. The whole routine adds up to about ten minutes a week.

Training a hound bred to make its own decisions

A dog sent underground alone had to solve problems without being told, and a Dachshund still weighs an instruction before acting on it. That is independence rather than a shortage of brains, and it responds beautifully once you find the right currency.

The currency is usually food. A Mini Dachshund that has stopped listening to your voice will still work hard for a cube of cheese, and that single fact makes the breed straightforward to teach. Keep sessions to two or three minutes, ask for one thing at a time, mark the behaviour the instant it happens, and finish while the dog still wants another go.

Because food works so well, most owners measure meals rather than filling the bowl, and count training treats against the day’s total. It keeps the rewards worth having, and it means there is always a Dachshund in the kitchen ready to earn the next piece.

Socialization is the rest of the first year. Different floors, umbrellas, wheeled bins, hats, calm adult dogs going about their business. A puppy that has met a hundred ordinary things by six months treats the hundred and first as ordinary too.

Come and meet the Mini Dachshund puppies

Photographs flatten a Dachshund into a joke about sausages. In front of you it is a compact, muscular, surprisingly substantial little hound with a serious nose and a great deal to say for itself, and the coat and colour you thought you wanted often change the moment a different puppy leans on your ankle.

Our Mini 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.