Dachshunds can be hard to train

Dachshunds take more time and patience to train. Part of this is due to their stubbornness. A dog that was initially bred to go down a hole in the ground to fight with and kill creatures that could kill it does not take well to having somebody try to tell it what to do. I've seen other bloggers gloss over this fact. Some even going to far as to say Dachshunds really did not kill Badgers the human hunters did. These dogs originated in Germany. I am of German descent. Those old time Germans would not have tolerated a dog that would not kill a Badger.

People do not think of Dachshunds killing anything because they are just so darn cute and loving to their humans. I understand that 100%. Our Dolly is the cutest and most loving dog I have ever known. However..... after getting to know and understand this breed of dog I would not step into a yard with several angry Dachshunds in it. To them a stranger is the French army about to cross the Rhine River into Germany.

Given time and patience Dachshunds can be trained but they will do it in their own time and their own way. You will not get 100% obedience all the time. You can however make them feel very guilty for disobeying you. I use the guilty thing quite frequently. I also heap lots of praise when things go well. Another thing I do is if I tell Dolly NO and she immediately stops what she is doing I praise her.  Some folks keep on and on with what I  call the ass chewing. In my opinion she did what I wanted her to by stopping the unwanted behavior. If she goes back to doing that behavior I again tell her NO and she soon gets the idea. She still messes up on occasion.

On housebreaking I haven't a clue. She was already housebroke when she came to stay with us. I don't recall mentioning the incident that happened on her first night here. We overslept. She needed to potty. She found where we kept our trashbags, pulled one out with her mouth, and did her business on it. To be bluntly honest I still have trouble believing that happened even though the evidence was right in front of my eyes. No one actually saw this but the evidence points to it. Dolly has this habit of hiding intelligent behavior from humans. In the early part of her stay here she figured out how to get the back door open.  She can't even reach the doorknob. This stopped after I moved the cat litter box. The litter box was right next to the back door and it's one of those covered litter boxes. The cover stands fairly high and can easily support a Doxies weight.

I should also mention that a Doxie makes those people who write books on dog behavior look like a childless person who writes books on how to raise children. There are very few accurate books on Doxies out there and your best bet is to actually talk with SEVERAL people who own or have owned Doxies. If you, dear reader, know of any book that has actually worked for you in the past PLEASE post it in the comments section.

My only regrets about dachshunds is that I did not get to know the breed many years ago.

Burying and Digging

I have not kept this Blog up like I should have. I have been distracted to the point of forgetting I started it. To anybody who may have been reading this I apologize. Given the size of the internet I rather doubt that I have had even one reader.

Dachshunds love to dig. If you are someone who does not want holes dug in your yard then you should find another breed. That being said I don't like holes dug in mine either but our Doxie is a bit different from others. She does love to dig but it is confined to our vegetable garden. Mostly it is confined to the garden. Yes she does occasionally dig in the yard but she usually covers her holes back up unless she is going after a mole. Holes dug in the process of killing moles do not bother me one bit.

I once had a lab that dug holes just to be digging them. Some of them he would lay in all day. Sometimes I would nearly break an ankle stepping in one. I did manage to get him to cut back on it. I found that giving him a bath during the summer caused him to cut back on his hole digging. I bathed him every ten days. Once he dug a hole he came back to it everyday and kept expanding it. If the hole was in an area that caused me trouble I took a garden hose and filled it with water. He would not lay in or dig in a muddy hole. I did this daily until he gave up on the hole entirely. I would then fill the hole back up, re-seed it with grass, and water it daily.

With the Doxie her hole digging usually has an intelligent purpose to it. It's actullay rather funny to watch. We have a neighbor that Dolly loves. The neighbor gives her a dog biscuit everyday. Dolly hates dog biscuits and turns her nose up at them. When the neighbor gives her the biscuit she acts as if she has been given a great treasure. Instead of eating it she does the happy run back to our yard.  She then buries the biscuit out of the sight of our neighbor who thinks she is eating them.

She will not bury the biscuit just anywhere. She buries them next to things like our cucumber trellis or a fence post.  She has to have a landmark of some kind. We dig furiously for a few seconds, drop the biscuit in, and then cover it up with her nose. It's usually rather hard to see where she has buried something.

I really think that she does this so that our neighbors feelings will not get hurt. Her secret is safe with me. I plan to pay back our neighbor with a little Christmas gift and pretend it's from Dolly the Doxie.

My love for this dog continues to grow.