Dachshunds: The Badger Dogs

Picture this. It's the 1600s, somewhere in the dense, dripping forests of Germany. There's a hole in the ground, and inside that hole is a badger. Not a cute, cartoon badger. A thirty-pound, thick-skulled, razor-clawed, extremely-unhappy-to-see-you badger, sitting in a tunnel it dug itself, in a den it is fully prepared to die defending.

And the German foresters look at this situation and think... "You know what we need? A dog. A very specific dog. Short legs. Long body. Loose skin so it doesn't get shredded. A chest like a barrel. And an attitude that says 'I will absolutely go in that hole after you.'"

That dog is the dachshund. And today, that same dog mostly gets carried around in purses and dressed up as a hot dog for Halloween. Which, honestly, might be the greatest image rebrand in the history of dogkind.

Welcome to Doggone History.

Hey everybody, welcome back to Doggone History, the podcast where every episode we dig into, pun fully intended today, the story of one dog breed. I'm your host, Rich Napolitano, and every Wednesday we take one breed and trace it all the way back: where it came from, why it looks the way it does, and how it ended up in your living room instead of, say, a badger den.

Today's breed has one of the most recognizable silhouettes in the entire dog world. Long body, short legs, big ears, bigger personality. You've heard it called the wiener dog, the sausage dog, the doxie. Officially, it's the dachshund. And it has one of the most purpose-built, function-over-form origin stories of any breed we've covered. So let's get into it.

Let's start with the name, because it tells you almost everything you need to know about this dog's original job description.

"Dachshund" is a compound German word. "Dachs" means badger. "Hund" means dog. Put them together and you get, literally, "badger dog." Not "cute little dog." Not "lap dog." Badger dog. This was a working title, like calling a job posting "Badger Removal Specialist."

Now, if you want to sound like you know German, it's pronounced closer to "DAHKS-hoont." Most Americans say "DOKS-und" or just skip the whole thing and say "doxie," which, honestly, is easier for everybody. Either way, you're technically saying "badger dog" every time you talk about your dachshund, and I think that's a fact more owners should bring up at parties.

And then there's the nickname everyone actually uses: wiener dog. Which makes total sense once you look at one, that long body and short legs really do call to mind a certain processed meat product. We'll come back to that "wiener" branding a little later, because it actually caused the breed some real problems in the twentieth century. But first, how do you even end up with a dog shaped like a sausage in the first place?

So Europeans had been using dogs to hunt badgers since at least the Middle Ages, France, Spain, other parts of Germany all had their own local badger-dog traditions going back centuries. Early depictions of dachshund-like dogs even show up in European manuscripts as far back as the 1400s.

But the dachshund as a distinct, deliberately bred type really starts taking shape in the late 1600s and really gets going in the 1700s, when German foresters and hunters began breeding this type consistently, rather than just occasionally getting a short-legged dog and going "huh, that one's good at holes."

And here's the thing, badgers are not a pushover. They've got thick skin, powerful jaws, sharp claws, and they will absolutely fight to the death in their own den. So designing a dog to go in after one wasn't about cuteness. It was engineering. The breed needed:

• Short legs, so the dog could actually fit into a badger tunnel

• A long, narrow, barrel-shaped chest and body, again, tunnel-shaped, for a tunnel-shaped problem

• Loose, thick skin, so the dog wouldn't get seriously torn up in a close-quarters fight underground

• Big, paddle-like paws for digging

• Floppy ears that fold down and keep dirt and debris out while the dog is underground

• And temperamentally, serious guts. A dog that will not back down from something bigger and angrier than it is

That last one is important, and we'll come back to it, because if you've ever owned a dachshund, you already know: this dog was bred to fight a badger. It has never fully let go of that energy, even when the biggest threat in the house is the vacuum cleaner.

Genetically, the dachshund's family tree draws from scent hounds and terrier-type dogs, hound lineage for that relentless nose and tracking stamina, terrier grit for the willingness to actually engage the badger once found. Some breed historians point to hounds like the Bruno Jura Hound or bloodhound-type dogs as likely ancestors on the scenting side.

And it worked. The dachshund became, functionally, a heat-seeking missile for badgers, low enough to enter the den, tough enough to survive the fight, and driven enough to actually finish the job.

Now, here's where the breed starts to specialize even further.

In the 1800s, Germany had a boom in its rabbit population. And a thirty-plus-pound badger-fighting dachshund is a little bit of overkill for chasing a rabbit, kind of like bringing a tank to a game of tag. So breeders scaled the dog down, creating the miniature dachshund, purpose-built for rabbits and hares, while the larger standard dachshund kept working on badgers, foxes, and, in packs, even wild boar.

And then there's the coat situation. Dachshunds come in three official varieties: smooth, wirehaired, and longhaired. This wasn't a fashion choice, each coat had a job.

The smooth coat is considered the original, closest to those early hound-and-terrier-cross dogs. Sleek, low-maintenance, good for general hunting conditions.

The wirehaired dachshund came later, developed by crossing in terrier breeds, wirehaired pinschers and various terriers, to create a rougher, weatherproof coat that could handle brush, brambles, and cold without the dog getting torn up before it even reached the badger.

And the longhaired dachshund is thought to have come from crossing in spaniel-type dogs, giving it a softer coat and a slightly gentler look, while still being a fully capable hunter underneath all that hair.

By the late 1800s, German breeders had formalized all of this. The first German dachshund breed club was founded in 1888, which is really when the dachshund stops being "a regional type of hunting dog" and starts being "a breed" in the modern sense, standardized, documented, bred to a specific look and purpose.

Dachshunds started showing up outside Germany in a big way in the 1800s, and they were a hit. Queen Victoria kept dachshunds and helped popularize them in British high society. They made their way to the United States too, and by 1885 the dachshund was officially recognized by the American Kennel Club, making it one of the earlier breeds on the AKC's books. The Dachshund Club of America followed in 1895.

By the early 1900s, dachshunds were genuinely popular and fashionable pets in the U.S. and U.K., a cute, portable, quirky little dog. Things were going great.

And then World War One happened.

Because the dachshund is so unmistakably, unapologetically German, it's basically a walking, barking symbol of Germany, the breed took a direct hit to its popularity during both World Wars. Anti-German sentiment ran high, and owning a dachshund suddenly felt, to a lot of people, a little too on-the-nose.

So owners got creative. During World War One, some dachshund owners started calling their dogs "liberty hounds" or "liberty pups" instead, swapping out anything that sounded German for something safely patriotic. And they weren't alone in this, German Shepherds went through the exact same thing around the same time, getting rebranded as "Alsatians" in the U.K., a name that actually stuck there for decades.

The dachshund took another hit in popularity around World War Two, for the same basic reason. But here's the thing about dachshunds: much like the actual dog itself, the breed's reputation is stubborn. It kept bouncing back. By the mid-twentieth century, the dachshund had fully rebuilt its image and was climbing right back up the popularity charts, this time as a beloved companion dog first, and a badger specialist a distant, if not entirely forgotten, second.

Once the dachshund settles into life as a companion dog, it starts showing up everywhere in culture, and this is honestly one of my favorite parts of the breed's story.

Pablo Picasso had a dachshund named Lump, that's L-U-M-P, a name that just means "goblin" or "rascal" in German slang, and Lump wasn't just a pet, he was basically embedded in Picasso's creative life for years, showing up in the artist's work and famously getting the run of the studio. If you've ever had a dachshund decide it owns your house, you understand the dynamic completely.

Writers loved them too. E.B. White, the author of Charlotte's Web, owned a famously disobedient dachshund named Fred, and White wrote about the sheer futility of trying to train him with a level of exasperated affection that any dachshund owner today will recognize instantly. He basically said he'd have better luck training a zebra to balance a circus club than getting Fred to listen to a command. That stubborn streak we talked about earlier? Fred had it in full.

And then there's my personal favorite dachshund pop-culture moment: the 1972 Munich Olympics. The organizing committee wanted a mascot that captured the spirit of the games, and specifically, something cheerful, since Munich was branding these as "the cheerful games." At a Christmas party in 1969, staff sat around with crayons and clay trying to come up with mascot ideas. And the one that stuck was a dachshund, modeled after a real wirehaired dachshund puppy, painted in pastel Olympic stripes, deliberately avoiding red and black to steer clear of any uncomfortable historical associations. They named him Waldi.

Waldi became the first official mascot in Olympic history. The marathon course that year was even designed to trace his outline, runners started at his "neck," looped through a park for his "mouth," and finished through another park representing his "tail." Fifty different manufacturers were licensed to produce Waldi merchandise, and over fifteen official versions were made. Not bad for a badger-hunting dog from the forests of Bavaria.

Dachshunds picked because they're popular in Germany, sure, but also because, according to the organizers, they genuinely embody the qualities of a good athlete: resistance, tenacity, and agility. Which, if you think about the breed's original job, tracks perfectly.

So where does that leave the dachshund today?

It's consistently one of the more popular breeds in the U.S. and worldwide, the AKC and kennel clubs abroad still recognize the standard and miniature sizes, and all three coat types: smooth, wire, and longhaired. You'll sometimes hear the term "tweenie" for a dachshund that falls in between standard and miniature size, not an official classification, but a real thing breeders and owners talk about.

Temperamentally, dachshunds are still, very much, the dog that was bred to fight a badger. Confident. Stubborn. Big dog energy in a small dog body. A prey drive that will absolutely activate for a squirrel, a rolling ball, or occasionally your ankle. If you've ever wondered why your twelve-pound dachshund is fully convinced it can take on a Great Dane, the badger-hunting résumé explains a lot.

There is a real health consideration worth mentioning, briefly, because it's directly connected to the breed's history: that long back and short-legged body, the exact shape that made this dog so good at tunnel work, also makes dachshunds more prone to spinal issues, particularly something called intervertebral disc disease, or IVDD. It's one of the trade-offs of breeding a dog into such a specific, elongated shape. Not a reason to avoid the breed, just something responsible owners and breeders keep an eye on.

But mostly, today's dachshund lives a very different life than its ancestors. Still occasionally a working dog in parts of Europe, still a show dog in conformation rings around the world, but overwhelmingly, a companion. A couch enthusiast. A dog that will burrow under your blankets with the same instinct that once sent it into a badger's den, except now the "prey" is just a warm spot to sleep.

Let's close out with a quick rapid-fire round, because dachshunds have generated some genuinely great trivia.

There are dachshund races held around the world, you might have heard of the "Wiener Nationals," held at various tracks and events, plus plenty of local Oktoberfest-adjacent dachshund races. They are exactly as chaotic and delightful as they sound, a pack of short-legged dogs sprinting in roughly the intended direction.

The breed's association with actual hot dogs runs deep, that "wiener dog" nickname connects right back to the German sausage, and dachshund imagery has been used in American food advertising for generations because the visual pun basically writes itself.

And one more: despite the stereotype of the tiny lap dog, the original German dachshunds bred for badger hunting were considerably bigger than the standard dachshunds we picture today, some in the thirty-to-forty-pound range. The compact "sausage dog" image most people have is really more associated with the miniature variety, which only came along once rabbits, not badgers, became the primary target.

If you've got a favorite dachshund fact we didn't cover, send it our way on social media, BlueSky, Threads, Instagram, we're @doggonehistorypodcast or @doggonehistory depending on the platform, links are in the show notes.

So that's the dachshund, a dog engineered, quite literally, to crawl into a hole and fight something bigger than itself, that somehow became a Picasso muse, an Olympic mascot, and the reason there's a hot dog costume in every pet store every October.

From badger tunnels in eighteenth-century Germany to your couch cushions right now, that's a heck of a journey for a dog that's about a foot tall.

Thanks so much for listening to Doggone History. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and do me a favor and leave a rating and review. Transcripts and past episodes are always up at doggonehistory.com.

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