Today, there much talk about a flesh-eating drug called “Krokodil,” which is derived from the Russian* word for crocodile. There is quite a bit of paranoia about the drug spreading to the US, but it doesn’t seem likely at this time.
However, every time I see a report about this drug, I instantly think of a dog– more specifically, a dachshund.
The dog is written about at length in Konrad Lorenz’s Man Meets Dog (1949). Lorenz was one of the founders of the science of ethology, and wrote extensively about dogs and other domestic animals. He is perhaps best known for the modern interpretation of the theory of imprinting, which posits that certain animals, particularly birds, come to identify their parent species by attaching themselves to the first moving object or living thing they see.
He is also famous for the discredited hypothesis that most dogs are derived from golden jackals and only a few dogs have wolf in them. The jackal dogs were juvenile and friendly toward everyone, while the wolf-derived dogs were one-mannish and reserved.
The dog named Krokodil was a jackal dog. He was purchased to replace a real crocodile that was given to Lorenz when he was a young boy:
I shall begin with the example of a dog whose apparently touching juvenile affection was so exaggerated as to result in the positive caricature of a dog. It was a dachshund named Kroki which I was given by a kind relation with no understanding of animals. At time I was a small boy but already an active naturalist. The dog was called Kroki because the kind donor had first of all presented me with a crocodile, which in the absence of heating my terrarium, refused to eat, and which we therefore exchanged in the pet shop for the animal which bore the nearest outward resemblance to it! The dachshund was an aristocratic creature, long-bodied and short-legged– truly resembling a crocodile–and its pendulous ears literally trailed the floor. He was of an affecting friendliness, and greeted me on our first acquaintance as only a dog can greet a long lost master. Of course I was flattered, until it became clear that he greeted everyone else in the same manner. He was obsessed with an overwhelming love of humanity which extended to all mankind. He never barked at anybody and, even though he probably preferred my family and myself, he would readily follow a stranger if we did not happen to be available.
Now, this dachshund’s behavior is utterly unlike the dachshunds I’ve known, and my grandmother’s dachshund could have also been named after the archosaur. Unlike Lorenz’s dog, she not only had the crocodile’s body, she had the crocodile’s disposition as well. She barked at everyone, and I don’t know how many different people she bit. She bit me and all the other grandchildren, and as a result, I have a bit of fear of smooth dachshunds. I don’t have the same reaction with the other coats– the long-haired ones look like really strange golden retrievers– but if I see small smooth one, I get a bit nervous.
In the US, the dachshund is the “wiener dog.” I have always thought this was a stupid name.
Maybe a better name for them would be crocodile dog.
It fits them so much better!
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*Krokodil is also German for crocodile. Konrad Lorenz was Austrian and a German-speaker.
I’m with you about the dachshund. Like your grandmother’s ours in the seventies, called mitzi, was all bark and bite..!
I’ve met a couple of really sweet, laid-back longhaired standard dachshunds. They were from Holland, though, not from the USA. My cousin brought them back when he retired from the Air Force.
Anyone have an opinion on the shoulder angle of the doxie in the photo? I have seen dogs in shows with the should blade in that position when the front feet were under the dog (not a doxie) standing normally.
My neighbors have a long x short haired dachsie who is on par with my Labbies for being affectionate and extremely playful. Most of daschunds I’ve known justify the findings of Deborah L. Duffy, Yuying Hsu, and James A. Serpell (2008) Breed differences in canine aggression” (overall must aggressive breed). (I’ve lost the URL, but it’s available on Researchgate).
I remember reading that somewhere doxies are an entire group, not just a breed. I guess there is variation in the breed type and mind.
But shouldn’t a dog’s legs be long enough that his penis doesn’t drag the ground or hit against rocks on the ground? Ouch!
In the FCI, dachshunds are one group unto themselves.
They are actually a type of hound that became a terrier.
Dachshund history seems to be something their breeders all know about – but don’t always agree.
Since dachshunds WERE (where I grew up) all shorthaired and either red or black and tan, and they were said to do terrier work (somewhere else in the world), I once guessed they might partially come from old European working black and tan hunt terriers – the sort of terrier many European countries claim as their own. Something like an ancestor of pinschers.
But two different German people have told me that they don’t believe dachshunds started in Germany. And many people believe they weren’t bred to draw badgers, but got the name for being short legged like a badger.
One man said he thought they were dwarf whippets. After the rabbit ran in a hole, a dwarf variety of same dogs that chased the rabbit into the hole chased the rabbit out of the hole. Doxies do have an arch over the loin and a steep tuck up from a deep chest. And look at the pointy muzzle.
Other people think doxies are dwarf scent hounds of the blood tracking type. I have seen photos of other European breeds who look like doxies but are hot trail trackers. And there are the doxies called Teckels.
Another person said she believed doxies to be ancient Egyptians dogs, based on drawings in pyamids, which might make them sort of a dwarf Basenji type dog.
The pointy muzzle combined with heavy drop ears seems, to me, to perhaps be a sign of either a combination of tpes or of an origin from before those two traits tended to seperate. Or maybe both – the original doxie type MIGHT be ancient and the breed might have had new blood added since then. Who knows?
They aren’t Egyptian.
I can tell you that!
Genetic studies place them with other scent hounds, so whatever fantasies people have about them, well, we have DNA!
The German hunt terrier is a much, much younger breed than a Dachshund. It was created in the twentieth century by two Nazi zoologists.
I have trouble really liking the smooth hairs as well. Mainly because of the one that would run loose when I was a kid and bite at your feet.
The first friendly Dachshund I meet was a long hair,so my impression on them is better. I know there’s nice ones out there,but will still be a dog I cant see myself owning.