Dachshund

🌍 Overview

Dachshund is German for badger dog, and the breed was built to do exactly that, going to ground after burrowing carnivores. German foresters bred the type consistently through the 18th century, with the smooth coat considered original, longhairs following from selective breeding, and wirehairs arriving in the 1800s through crosses with rough-coated terriers. A boom in Germany's rabbit population produced the miniature, a smaller version for smaller quarry. The short legs that let the dog fit down a badger sett are not a cosmetic trait: they come from an FGF4 retrogene on chromosome 12 that simultaneously causes premature degeneration and calcification of the intervertebral discs, carrying an odds ratio of 51.23 for disc disease. The retrogene sits at a frequency of about 0.99 in the breed, meaning the defining silhouette and the defining disease are effectively the same mutation.

📋 Quick Facts

📜 History

Formal standardization arrived only in the late 1800s. The Deutscher Teckelklub was founded in 1888, fixed the breed's type, and still sets the international standard used today. German affection for the dog later put it at the center of an Olympic first: Waldi, mascot of the 1972 Munich Games, was the first official Olympic mascot ever produced. Otl Aicher designed him in pastel stripes and modeled him on a real dachshund named Cherie von Birkenhof, the breed picked for its Bavarian popularity and for qualities the organizers called indispensable to an athlete, namely resistance, tenacity and agility.

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🤩 Fun Facts