Puppy Training
Dachshunds require training to reach their full potential as human companions.
Debonair Dachshunds of the Kennel Club
The kennel/crate is a great friend to both you and your puppy. It is not punishment for the dog, but rather a refuge of safety. It is not cruel to crate-train your puppy—it is kindness. It allows your puppy to learn appropriate house behavior which may not come naturally, thus giving her a much more contented and pleasant life. A crate-trained puppy will avoid learning bad habits that will eventually cause her to be relegated to the back yard by herself. Crate-training helps a dog become a well-behaved indoor pet, bringing joy and pleasure to her owners, and giving her a much more enjoyable and fulfilling life. Do not listen to the self-righteous, misguided voices telling you that putting a dog in a kennel is cruel. There is big difference between proper kennel training and neglect. Wise and kind dog owners do not regularly put a dog in a kennel for hours on end, untended, with no access to food and water. But the proper usage of a kennel can produce a very pleasant, house-trained dog that brings joy and companionship to the entire family, which ultimately means a much happier life for the dog!
Dachshunds are immensely stubborn, but I find they are very eager to please. Training a puppy well right from the start produces grown dogs who do what you need them to on command, enhancing the people/dog relationship. If you fail to train to the outcomes you need and find yourself with a misbehaving grown dog, revert to crate training and see if you can improve the situation.
Train your dog not to:
> Run through open doorways, but to wait until told to come or go
> Get underfoot
> Jump on people
Do you want a calm dog? I do. The long-hair dachshund line tends to be a rather calm and sweet breed of dogs, but even the short-hair dachshunds can be calm if….IF….you will do several things:
> Don’t expect your puppy to calm down until some time after his first birthday.
> Don’t roughhouse with your pup in a loud and combative fashion.
> Don’t let anyone treat your dachshund pup like a fighting dog.
Positive training techniques:
> Use your dog’s name frequently.
> Choose a set of words to teach your pup. I like “come,” “no,” “treat time,” “go potty,” “go to daddy,” “kennel up,” “go outside,” “stay” (can’t say I’ve gotten good results with “stay,” but there’s always hope for another day…..)
> Pet your puppy pleasantly while she eats. This will calm and retrain some of her natural tendencies to protect her food. If she associates your presence while she eats as pleasant, and finds that she doesn’t have to protect her food from you, she’ll be less likely to snap at a curious child who comes too close while she eats.
Teach your pup when to walk through an open doorway. A dog who dashes thru open doorways will eventually get smashed in a closing door, or trip the person walking thru it.
Be cautious when playing tug-of-war with your pup. Their young teeth can be damaged.
Dachshunds are stubborn; if your training is inconsistent, it will be ineffective.
Dachshunds are loyal….to one, or maybe two people. The person who spends the most time loving on a dachshund has the best chance of getting this intelligent but stubborn creature to do what they want. The secondary person in the dog’s life will tend to say “he won’t do what I say.” My best advice for that secondary person is to love on the pet and train him consistently and take naps on the sofa with the dachshund, and call for person number one to come make the dog do what you want lol!
Dachshunds typically love to go places in cars. We once had a short hair dachshund that could distinguish between our two automobiles. I could say “go to daddy’s truck” and he consistently went to the big black diesel truck. Or I could say “go to mama’s Suburban” and he would go wait at my green Suburban.
But a dachshunds love of jumping in the car to go places also puts them at risk, because they are not afraid of cars and seem to have no understanding of the danger of a moving vehicle. I’ve cried over several dachshunds in my lifetime who went off to the happy hunting grounds under the wheels of somebody’s automobile, and when I was a little girl one particularly sturdy little guy at my aunt’s house lived his life with 3 legs after a run-in with a car. Happily, even with only 3 legs, he remained quite agile and kept up with the two other dachshunds at my cousins’ house.
Short hair dachshunds have short tempers, and will bite pesky children who disturb their rest or bother them. Long hair dachshunds tend to have a much more easy-going approach to people. I have never personally had a long hair bite anyone. You never hear of dachshunds mauling or killing anyone, and bites are usually infrequent, single in nature, and provoked. Nevertheless, these dogs are a hunting breed, and should never be left with little babies or small children unsupervised, for the safety of both the child and the dog. Any adult who wants to pester a dog, well, they know the stakes, or they soon will! LOL
Feed the Pets, Not the Pests
If you live in the south, you know that ants and roaches and flies are a constant threat to household peace. The first line of defense is to not feed them, thus, your dog’s food bowl must be treated as a potential source of food for these unwanted creatures. To make sure that your dog’s food bowl is not a source of nasty germs for your dog to ingest, and also not a draw for unwanted pests, place your dogs’ food bowl in a pan of water wider than the bowl. This keeps ants and small roaches out. Another option is to put the bowl in a plate covered in First Saturday Lime or diatomaceous earth. Of course, these remedies don’t help much with the large palmetto bugs or flies, which can fly and land in the bowl.
Things that never work with my dachshunds, but which I keep saying anyway:
“Stop licking me in the mouth”
“Don’t you do that ever again”
“Don’t you pee on my rug!”
“I’m not going to give you any more treats”
and, the classic “you can’t sleep in my bed!”
Good luck if you try any of those on your adorable stubborn dachshund!
