Life with a Dachshund

      Once a Dachshund owner, always a Dachshund owner.

      We’ve never owned a Dachshund before, being lovers of bigger dogs. But my German brother-in-law living in Cologne, Germany with my sister, has had nothing but Dachshunds all his life. Another example is my aunt when she and her husband were raising their 5 kids; they once had 20 of them.

      This is a dog with an independent mind. That mind is where the antics come from.

      One day, Jonathan, Spot’s dog trainer, told me he was looking for a market for Dachshund puppies from a breeder. I remembered my aunt, long widowed. I contacted my cousin Marie if they would like to buy a puppy. They haven’t had a Dachshund in over 30 years.

      Marie consented but she had one condition: that the dog be housebroken first before I bring it over. That meant the pup will stay at our house in the meantime.

      Jonathan brought the little black puppy to the house and it stayed with us for a whole month.

      I was working then and I’d see the pup only in the mornings and evenings. It would spend the night in my elderly dad’s room so it never cried at night. We called it Tutti. She was a female Dachshund.

      Tutti quickly became a ball of energy. When I’m home in the evenings, I’d watch with fascination as the little dog would start chase games with our one Boxer and Dalmatian, calling all the shots. Tutti would challenge the bigger dogs and lord it over them in every way.

       “He seems to have no sense of size,” I observed amusedly. Tutti was very small then, shorter than the length of an adult Boxer’s leg. I’d watch with unease as I’d see Tutti grasp one of the Boxer’s hind legs and playfully pull it, fearful that with one snap of the Boxer’s mouth that pup’s life would end. But the Boxer tolerated it.

      Faced with a more assertive canine houseguest who knew what it wanted, the larger dogs were quickly compliant.

A sleeping Tutti when she was still a pup

      My father noticed this trait immediately and admired it. The leader of our large dogs was an aggressive little Dachshund. During the day the dog would sleep between my dad’s feet while he watched TV. Other times she’d gladly belly up on my dad’s lap and take her nap. When she wakes up, Tutti would emerge from my dad’s room to round up the adult dogs and challenge them to another game of wrestling and chase for that afternoon. I’d hear the mad scrambling of feet and panting rushes of breath as the dogs played till evening time.

    That one month passed, though, and the sound of that light-hearted playfulness in our house ended when my cousin arrived to claim Tutti.

      My dad probably tried to keep his sadness to himself.

      But Marie saw it in his face.

      A few days later Marie gifted my dad with another Dachshund.

Packy Lives With Us

      Packy was my dad’s dog and I left him to keep my dad company. But Packy’s temperament was different. He wasn’t merry and playful like Tutti. He seemed of a more serious character. After he “cased the joint” and profiled all of us, his new owners, I think Packy decided to train us – and his canine packmates – than the other way around. Nobody was going to tell him what to do!

      That happened easily enough, as the dog was correct in his assessment. I was just learning my training fundamentals from a dog trainer. All the more my household -- nobody was yet equipped to handle an "independent thinking" canine type like the Dachshund. Packy seemed to know that.

      So while I was away at work, Packy spent the days training his new family.

      One weekend morning, however, while my dad sunbathed in his favorite chair and we were all outside in the front yard, I watched the househelp trudge heavily behind a pulling and heaving Packy on a leash. I read the signs easily -- the dog was “dictating” to his handler where he wanted to go, how fast the pace, and what he wanted to do. I had to step in. I was going to teach Packy his basic walking commands.

      Packy protested against my handling but I had been warned early enough that this was a dog that needed a firmer hand than our bigger dogs. I wasn’t going to give in to him. It was a fight between me and the Dachshund.

      Eventually, Packy learned to walk beside me.

      But that’s only when he’s with me. When he’s with our househelp – they walk behind him. . .

      My brother-in-law had once warned me: “That dog will try to be number 1” when I told him the top dog in our house was Spotty.

      Thus, I had to assign his position at once. He would be dog number 3, being the new arrival, after Toby who was dog number 2.

      But I soon saw that the rank placement was not quite right. Packy was more assertive and persistent. Toby was submissive. Based on the dogs’ strength of character, I switched Toby and Packy around. I moved Packy up as dog number 2. Toby didn’t mind.

True to his breed Packy was fearless.

      But my brother-in-law’s words of experience were ringing true. In the morning, I find Packy sleeping in Spot’s bed in my room while Spot is out for his morning walk. When all the dogs are out for a “pack walk” Packy insists on walking on the same level as Spotty, pulling and heaving against his handler until he is beside Spot, then his leash slackens.

A Dachshund dressed as a drag queen in a dog club Packy attended.
Note the false lashes!

A Schemer in Our Midst

      When it comes to deviousness, Packy leads the pack. As I learned to train dogs, I ambitiously thought of training them to sing on command. Packy was already howling at a passing ice cream cart so it was a matter of transferring that cue from the ice cream cart to my command – followed by a biscuit. The little dog noticed early enough that a biscuit follows every time he “sings.” (He even got to make Toby, our other Dalmatian to sing as back-up. See my August post, “The Biscuit Jar”). One day, the dog wanted a biscuit. He had no access to food because mealtime was still an hour away. But he knew how he could get a biscuit -- if he sang.

      Thus, Packy waited until the next food vendor came along – and decided he would howl at it. It happened to be the “taho” (sweet soya dessert) vendor just calling out with his voice. But Packy is Toby’s cue so Toby automatically caught it up and carried the tone to higher (and longer) levels. We heard the racket from inside the house and noticed the dogs howling at a new sound. After singing, Packy scrambled up the house with Toby close behind and headed for the biscuit jar, expecting to be rewarded. We gave each a biscuit. He howled, didn’t he?

      But Packy didn’t stop there. Next, he decided to “expand” his understanding of this reward technique, testing how far it would apply. One day, standing before the gate he just howled – at nothing. Again, we inside the house wondered what he was howling at. There was no food vendor passing by. But Toby’s vocal acrobatics which followed enlarged Packy’s song, making it longer and louder, a singing duo’s racket you could not ignore. After that they headed up the house towards the biscuit jar and we, the amused owners, so taken by the antics, gave in to the expectant attitude.

      Dachshunds were originally born and bred to hunt underground and fight badgers, an animal slightly taller than them. It is a dog that doesn’t have any concept of size, height or fear. With this background and genetic makeup, the breed was developed to have a mind of its own so he can manage alone without depending on his master.  “He’s down there under the ground,” my brother-in-law once told me, “and he can’t see you there to wait for your command. He has to decide by himself on what to do.”

      Packy’s constant challenge to his superiors (and inferiors) has sometimes resulted in dog fights. Like a true fighter, the dog has a never-give-in battle attitude, screaming and fighting wildly even if held at the neck up in the air by Spot’s bigger jaws. I’ve never seen anything like it; between bigger dogs I see the lower ranked pack member back down soon after the fight erupts. The dogs are equally sized so I usually let them solve their issues. But if Packy is involved we have to do “rescue” work. The little dog fights back even if we manage to make Spot drop him. We have to bar Packy from attacking after he is released (short of throwing a net over him and dragging him away)! Without our interference this dog will go down fighting. . . (Now if I were Spot. . . with that piercing racket so close to his ears when he grasps that wriggling annoyance up in the air? I’d let him go down fighting just to stop the ear-splitting noise!).

Packy -- when he's not plotting how to outsmart us

      These dogs also solve their own problems actively but from their doggy point of view. Tutti, now called Tootsie, over at my elderly aunt’s house in another city, lives a solitary canine life with a basket of toys, a cat, a rabbit, my aunt and a household staff as company. Turned out the dog is ball driven. Her concept of doggy heaven is a non-stop game of fetch-the-ball.

      But when potential playmates are too busy to accommodate (which is often), Tootsie found a way in which she could have a ball tossed for her so she could chase it. One day, my aunt noticed a tennis ball bouncing down the steps from the upstairs bedroom – and saw the dog chase it.

      But the scene repeated itself again.

      And again.

      Curious, she looked to see the source of this unusual incident. At the top of the stairs she found Tootsie, swinging in the air by a loose thread an old tennis ball. After a few seconds the dog dropped the ball down the steps. As the ball bounced away, she chased it. . .

      Packy, meanwhile, tried to go around my rule about his being allowed his afternoon walk only if he's quiet and well behaved. He didn’t quite agree to that but I was the alpha. Those were the rules.

      But his proposal of a Win-Win negotiation is pure doggy. He still screams and shouts excitedly while being leashed until the instance he is at the gate. Then I hear the barking stop suddenly – almost like a hiccup – and I know where he is. He is immediately in front of the gate as the maid’s hand is probably on the knob. Then I hear the gate open and – his mouth opens again, announcing to the whole world he’s out. I hear the mayhem follow him down the road as the dogs from the other houses race to their front yards to bark and shout at the passing challenger.

      I shake my head in disbelief and amusement. The dog has outsmarted me. I want silence when it’s time for him to walk? I get that silence – but only at the last 2 seconds before the gate is opened. Then he gets his walk – plus the added license to yell and challenge all the dogs in the neighborhood (a point we didn’t talk about…).

     This breed is difficult to co-exist with other breeds unless its packmates are all submissive. This is one dog that will immediately assume leadership position (if you don’t claim it upon his arrival). A few years ago, I met Marie Grace, the cousin of a childhood friend of mine at a dinner gettogether. She walked in with a Dachshund. I was with Jonathan that time and our eyes lit up when we saw the dog. We had a dog school at the local park that time and we invited her to bring her dog there.

      Marie Grace reacted as if I gave her a mouthful. She can barely breathe, she complained, running her pastry breads business from the house and keeping her 3 dogs from taking over everything. Top of her conversation was her 3 dogs (1 of which was with her) and how they seemed to drive her crazy so she always has to keep an eye on them.

      The occasion we went to was the Catholic novena Mass of a common friend of ours whose mother had died 9 days earlier. During the home Mass, at a moment of silence and prayer, while everybody was standing up, the serenity was suddenly jolted by the sound of a dog's bark. My eyes roved to the sound and there was Marie Grace's Dachshund, looking up at his mistress, asking to be carried. His mistress obediently broke her prayers, bent down to gather the dog, and carried it in her arms as she stood up. 

      I heard Jonathan trying to remark between gnashing teeth, "No wonder the dog controls her. One bark from him and she obeys!"

      Other dog owners used to the compliant and dependent canine pet will be up for surprises when faced with this breed. This dog is no robot you can train to just obey at the push of a button.

      This dog has his own set of buttons. Make sure your name is not among them.