I came across this post while perusing the dog blogosphere last night. It comes from the Born-to-Track News & Views blog, which I found very interesting. It turns out that dachshunds are required to do water retrieval work as part of the European field test system. Yes, you read that correctly– retrieving from the water.
I have been writing about the way Germans require versatility in their hunting dogs, and I knew that it was a common to use dachshunds as leashed blood-spoor trackers. Other German breeds are used for this work from, including HPR’s and jagdterriers. However, this particular blog focuses on using dachshunds for this particular purpose.
But like all German breeds, there is this very strong desire for versatility. A dog that can do many things is considered of very high quality. After all, Germany has historically been a densely populated part of Europe. Space is limited. If dogs can do multiple tasks, then one doesn’t have to buy a bunch of specialist dogs and spend money caring for them and training them.
Now, when you watch the dachshunds, don’t expect Labradors.
But they do have some intensity in their retrieves, don’t they?
The author continues:
Some of them are obsessive retrievers, and the whole thing is about swimming after the object and bringing it back. And doing it again…and again…and again. Some just love swimming. But the highest prize for “joie de vivre” in water goes to Bernie. He absolutely loves the water. He jumps in, paddles in such a way that the water splashes all around him. Then he barks while he tries to catch the droplets. When you watch him, you cannot help but smile. To be useful for waterfowl retrieving, Bernie would have to go through a structured training to learn “fetch and give”, but we enjoy his antics in water so much that we let him be just a pure pleasure hound.
Jolanta Jeanenny, Born-to-Track News & Views
This dog sounds like a retriever with natural abilities.
I’ll just say that for a trial dog, you have to do the force fetching training. For a normal working dog, natural instinct is really much more important. I would worry about putting a dachshund through such training for the very simple reason that they are also used as earth dogs, and they may not be as docile going through the FF process as a retriever or other gun dog. Dachshunds could also be like many golden retrievers with natural retrieving abilities– as soon as the pain comes, they go on strike. It’s largely a myth that working retrievers must be FF’d, because the Europeans produce lots of working retrieves without it.
Many lines of golden retrievers are actually losing this instinct, so I’m quite glad it exists in dachshunds.
But I think one could turn a dachshund with retrieving instinct into a normal working retriever. I doubt that they will be able to beat the best trial Labradors, though.
I have always suspected, though, that the wire-haired dachshund, which is the variety most used as working dog, has a touch of barbet or poodle in its background. After all, the pudelpointer is a wire-haired dog that is derived from crossing poodles with pointers, which are not wire-haired dogs. I think one could get a similar dog in dachshunds by taking the smooths and adding some terrier, rough-coated basset (like the fawn Brittany basset or the Vendeen bassets), and then some poodle or barbet-type dog to increase retrieving instinct and water ability. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had also used some Stichelhaar or Drahthaar blood.
This is a very interesting subject for most North Americans don’t expect this behavior in dachshunds. In fact, most North Americans think of dachshunds as being something like a toy breed. The truth of the matter is that they are still used for their original purposes. And they are still used as a versatile working dog. You just have to look in the right place.
I trained my primary tracking dachshund to retrieve by the “force” ear pinch method, but I went very slowly and gently; it took several months. He is now a reliable retriever, whether he feels like it or not, but I wouldn’t ask him to retrieve sea ducks. He is more a dog for woodies and for jump shooting on creeks.
Another dachshund that I trained for a client was too “hard”. I told his owner that I was likely to spoil my relationship with the dog if I persisted. The owner agreed to drop this aspect of his training.
We have a number of dachshunds who retrieve for the fun of it without much training , but they probably would not like to do it in a pond in which ice was beginning to form.
I probably wouldn’t use a dachshund in cold water, because they don’t have the size and volume that retains body heat.
There is a school of retriever training that doesn’t use FF. It’s more widespread in Europe, especially Britain, where I don’t think it even exists.
BTW, you have an excellent blog. I like reading about working dogs that are used as they are in the Old World.
My father grew up with a dachshund that was used for hunting, and he was an excellent earth dog and rabbit hunter. What was weird was that he was purchased as a pet, and he was a red smooth standard. But he had all the working instincts. He could be run with beagles, and they would bay a rabbit in a pipe or a dense thicket, and he would bolt it.
He also killed things. His most notorious kill was a mink which he dug out of a log pile.
His downfall happened rather strangely. He bayed what everyone thought was a mouse in a shed behind my grandparents’ house, and then he started acting really ill. It turned out that he had been bitten by a northern short-tailed shrew, which are one of the few venomous mammals.
He survived, but he never fully recovered.