58 Fun Facts About Dachshund

The name Dachshund is German for what?

Badger dog is the literal meaning, from Dachs, badger, and Hund, dog: the breed was developed to hunt badgers and other burrowing animals below ground.

In modern Germany, what short name is most commonly used for the Dachshund?

Dackel began as a southern German short form of Dachshund and is now the everyday word, so the name English speakers treat as thoroughly German is the less common one in Germany.

The Dachshund's short legs come from which inherited condition?

Chondrodysplasia, a dwarfism that shortens the long bones, gives the Dachshund its legs; an extra copy of the FGF4 gene, a retrogene, drives it in short-legged breeds.

The miniature Dachshund was bred to hunt what?

Rabbits were the quarry the miniature Dachshund was bred for, with a chest small enough to follow them into their warrens, while the standard size took on larger burrowing game.

What is the Dachshund commonly nicknamed in the British Isles and Australasia?

Sausage dog is the everyday nickname in Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, earned by the long, low body; North Americans prefer wiener dog, after the frankfurter.

Which British monarch was famously enamoured of Dachshunds?

Queen Victoria was especially fond of the breed, kept at royal courts across Europe; British royals were probably among its first owners in Britain, where the German hunting dog became a household pet.

The gene 'dachshund', whose mutants grow shortened legs, was named by scientists studying which lab animal?

Fruit fly geneticists described it in 1994: flies with no working copy grow shortened legs and no eyes at all, and a matching human gene, DACH1, is named after it.

Anti-German feeling in which war led American owners to rename their Dachshunds 'liberty hounds'?

World War I made anything German suspect: owners took to calling their dogs liberty hounds, sauerkraut became liberty cabbage, and many American Dachshund kennels stopped breeding.

Wirehaired Dachshunds often come in a grizzled coat colour named after which animal?

Wild boar is the breed standard's name for a coat in which each hair is banded light and dark, giving a grizzled look; it is one of the most common colours in wirehaired Dachshunds.

Which of the three Dachshund coat types is the oldest?

Smooth-haired is believed to be the original coat, and the other two grew out of it: wirehairs from crosses with rough-coated terriers, longhairs from selective breeding or, in another account, spaniel crosses.

The rough-coated Dachshund may have been crossed with which hard-coated breed?

The Schnauzer, once known as the Wire-haired Pinscher, is one suspected ancestor: breeders are thought to have crossed earlier Dachshunds with it and with Dandie Dinmont Terriers to get the harsh coat.

Which German field marshal of World War II was known for keeping Dachshunds?

Erwin Rommel, the 'Desert Fox', was known for keeping Dachshunds; the breed had long served political cartoonists as shorthand for Germany itself.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, which race followed a course shaped like the Dachshund mascot?

The marathon course traced the mascot's outline through Munich: runners set off at the back of the neck, circled the head, legs and belly to the tail, then ran along the back into the stadium.

What was the name of the Dachshund mascot of the 1972 Summer Olympics?

Waldi was the name of the 1972 mascot, a dachshund in pastel stripes chosen for the breed's reputation for stamina; Schuss, a skier figure, had served Grenoble 1968 only unofficially.

Which designer, also behind the Lufthansa logo, led the team that created the 1972 Olympic Dachshund mascot?

Otl Aicher ran the Games' design department and handed the mascot to a young colleague, Elena Winschermann, whom the IOC credits as its creator; a real dachshund, Cherie von Birkenhof, was the model.

Which two colours were kept off the 1972 Olympic mascot's stripes over Nazi associations?

Black and red were vetoed by the Games' design chief as colours tied to the Nazis, so the mascot's stripes came in pastel blue, green, yellow and orange instead.

The 1972 Olympic Dachshund mascot stood for endurance, tenacity and which third athletic quality?

Agility completed the trio the organisers saw in the dachshund, a favourite pet in Bavaria, which is why the breed was picked; about two million of the mascots were sold.

The US and UK class the Dachshund as a hound, but how does the FCI classify it?

In a group of its own: FCI Group 4 holds only the Dachshund, whose three sizes and three coats make nine varieties, while American and British clubs show it with the hounds.

What are the Dachshund's front paws, larger than its hind paws, built for?

Digging is the job: the breed standard asks for full, tight front paws with tough pads, larger than the hind pair, and they push the soil behind the dog as it tunnels toward its quarry.

The spotted Dachshund pattern called dapple goes by which name in collies and Australian Shepherds?

Merle is a pattern rather than a colour: patches of the coat are lightened at random, like a sponge dabbed over wet paint, and it can appear on any Dachshund colour.

Dachshund puppies bred from two dapple parents, known as double dapples, are prone to which problems?

Blindness and deafness are the risk when a puppy inherits the dapple gene from both parents, with some born with small or missing eyes, so careful breeders never mate two dapples.

What is the German name for the smallest Dachshund size, recognised by the FCI but not in the US or UK?

Kaninchen is the smallest of the FCI's three sizes, below the standard and the Zwerg, or dwarf, which matches the miniature; American and British clubs recognise only the larger two.

What are Dachshunds too big for the miniature class but smaller than most standards unofficially called?

Tweenies have no class of their own: at American shows a miniature must weigh 11 pounds or under, so a 14-pound dog competes as a standard beside rivals twice its weight.

In the 1989 animated film All Dogs Go to Heaven, what is the name of Charlie's nervous Dachshund sidekick?

Itchy Itchiford, voiced by Dom DeLuise, is the anxious but loyal best friend who helps Charlie break out of the dog pound at the start of the film.

Some kennel clubs, such as Germany's, separate miniature from standard Dachshunds by measuring what?

Chest circumference is the test in FCI countries, since a small girth is what lets the dog squeeze into burrows; the AKC sorts miniatures by weight instead, at 11 pounds and under.

Which New Yorker essayist said he would rather train a zebra than get his Dachshund Fred to obey?

E. B. White wrote that he never had to raise his voice or his hopes with Fred, who 'even disobeys me when I instruct him in something he wants to do'.

A 2008 University of Pennsylvania study rated which breed, like the Dachshund, unusually aggressive toward both people and dogs?

Chihuahuas and Dachshunds both scored high for aggression among 33 breeds; the authors warned that bite statistics flatter small dogs, because a big dog's bite is likelier to need medical attention.

The AKC standard calls the Dachshund 'courageous to the point of rashness' and any display of what a serious fault?

Shyness is the fault: the standard wants a dog that is clever, lively and bold enough to face its quarry head-on underground, with no room to turn around.

The Dachshund's long spine makes it prone to which condition, affecting about one in four of the breed?

Intervertebral disk disease strikes about a quarter of Dachshunds because their discs tend to harden early; the calcification is highly heritable, so Finland and the UK screen breeding dogs by X-ray.

In 2014 a Dachshund puppy called Mini Winnie became Britain's first dog produced by which technique?

Cloning gave Winnie, a 12-year-old Dachshund from London, an exact genetic copy of herself as a puppy; the South Korean lab's procedure was priced at £60,000.

A Dachshund crossed with a Corgi, as kept by Elizabeth II, is called what?

Dorgi is the name for a Dachshund–Corgi cross; Elizabeth II kept several after one of her corgis mated with Princess Margaret's dachshund Pipkin.

Which hound ranked just behind the Dachshund on the AKC's 2024 popularity list?

Beagles ranked seventh, one place behind Dachshunds, which had trailed them in ninth in 2022 before overtaking them as the AKC's top-ranked hound.

Why does the Dachshund Club of America oppose 'wiener racing'?

It risks back injuries, the club says, because the breed is genetically prone to spinal trouble, even though the races draw some tracks' biggest crowds of the year.

Roughly how far do the dogs run in a typical Dachshund race?

About 50 yards is the usual limit, and some sprints are only 25; even then many dogs never finish, stopping to visit rivals or trotting back to the owner who released them.

In earthdog trials, Dachshunds enter tunnels to locate an artificial bait or which live, caged animal?

Rats, kept safe in a cage behind bars at the end of the tunnel, are the quarry in earthdog trials; the dog must reach them and then bark, dig or scratch at the bars for a set time.

Which artist lived with a Dachshund named Lump and painted his portrait on a dinner plate at their first lunch?

Pablo Picasso asked whether Lump had ever had a plate of his own, then painted one for him on the spot; the dog moved in and later appeared in his Las Meninas variations.

What does the German word Lump, the name of a famous artist's Dachshund, mean?

Rascal is what Lump means in German; the Stuttgart-born puppy was bought as company for photographer David Douglas Duncan's Afghan hound, which rolled him around like a toy.

Which artist took his Dachshund Archie to press conferences and deflected awkward questions to the dog?

Andy Warhol called Archie his alter ego and carried him to openings and restaurants, hiding him under a napkin in case a health inspector appeared; a second dachshund, Amos, joined later.

Whose dachshunds Wadl and Hexl killed one of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's golden pheasants?

Kaiser Wilhelm II's dachshunds Wadl and Hexl killed one of the archduke's prized golden pheasants within moments of arriving at his Konopiště estate, a near diplomatic incident.

Which Scandinavian queen kept Dachshunds for decades?

Margrethe II of Denmark and Prince Henrik kept dachshunds from the 1970s; a 2001 profile noted that where Elizabeth II had corgis, the Danish queen had dachshunds.

Which man drove into downtown Dallas with his Dachshund Sheba on 24 November 1963?

Jack Ruby drove downtown with Sheba that Sunday to wire money to an employee, then walked to the police basement and shot Lee Harvey Oswald; he had once kept as many as ten dogs.

In Disney's 1966 comedy The Ugly Dachshund, which giant breed grows up believing it is a Dachshund?

A Great Dane puppy named Brutus is slipped into a litter of dachshunds and grows up thinking he is one, causing chaos for the couple played by Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette.

Adele named her Dachshund Louie after which musician?

Louis Armstrong gave the dog his full name: in a 2011 interview Adele said she owned a tough little wiener dog called Louis Armstrong, Louie for short.

Valerie the Dachshund made headlines in 2025 after surviving 529 days lost on which Australian island?

Kangaroo Island, off South Australia, is where Valerie bolted from her pen at a campsite in November 2023; Kangala Wildlife Rescue volunteers trapped her in April 2025 after about 1,000 hours of searching.

Obie, a 77-pound Dachshund, became the 'doxie version' of which TV show?

The Biggest Loser was the comparison when a Portland veterinary technician took Obie in from elderly owners who had overfed him; he weighed more than twice what a standard Dachshund should.

Which Toy Story character is a Dachshund based on a 1950s pull-toy?

Slinky Dog was a pull-along its maker had already dropped when Pixar redesigned him for the 1995 film; the company's boss said the old one 'wasn't nearly as cute'.

Hannibal Buress voices the Dachshund Buddy in which film?

The Secret Life of Pets (2016) makes Buddy one of the apartment-block neighbours who team up to search New York for their missing friend Max.

Liliane Kaufmann raised long-haired Dachshunds at which Frank Lloyd Wright house?

Fallingwater, the house her husband commissioned in 1935, remembers her dogs in a children's book, Moxie: The Dachshund of Fallingwater, the story of one of them.

Which future president toured Europe in 1937 with a Dachshund puppy named Dunker?

John F. Kennedy, then 20, posed with Dunker at The Hague that August; he is said to have bought the puppy for a girlfriend and given it up when it set off his allergies.

Which newspaper magnate eulogised his dead Dachshund Helen in his own column?

William Randolph Hearst wrote Helen's eulogy himself in his 'In The News' column, promising her grave a stone reading 'Here lies dearest Helen, my devoted friend'.

Which British artist painted his Dachshunds Stanley and Boodgie for the book Dog Days?

David Hockney called the pair his friends, 'intelligent, loving, comical, and often bored', and joked that as Hollywood dogs they seemed to know a picture was being made.

Carole Lombard's Dachshund Commissioner followed which actor around after her death?

Clark Gable, her husband, is said to have been ignored by Commissioner while Lombard lived, yet the dog would not leave his side after her fatal plane crash in 1942.

Which social-media Dachshund wrote the 2015 bestseller Adventures of the Wiener Dog Extraordinaire?

Crusoe, the self-styled Celebrity Dachshund from Ottawa, won his following with homemade costumes, playing a chef, a fisherman and a hockey goalie in his videos.

What term do German hunters mainly use for the working Dachshund?

Teckel is the hunters' word for the working Dachshund in Germany and gives the national breed club, the Deutscher Teckelklub of 1888, its name; it is not a separate hunting breed.

Giacomo Balla's 1912 painting of a Dachshund with blurred, scurrying legs belongs to which movement?

Futurism was in love with speed, and Balla caught it by copying stop-motion photography: in Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash the dog's legs and its owner's feet multiply into a blur.

What did an analysis of 42,855 German Dachshund breeding records find as inbreeding rose?

Smaller litters, more stillbirths: across 42,855 German litters both worsened as inbreeding rose, and the parents' inbreeding counted too, since a more inbred dam or sire also meant fewer pups.

What unusual trait can the dapple gene give a Dachshund's irises?

Blue or patched 'wall' colouring in one or both irises can come with the dapple gene; the AKC standard treats wall eyes as a serious fault except in dapples.

In Stanley Coren's The Intelligence of Dogs, which tier of working intelligence does the Dachshund fall into?

Average is Coren's verdict, 49th on a list that measures obedience: Dachshunds obey a known command first time about half the time, having been bred to rely on their own wits underground.