The topic came up in another thread that I didn't want to hijack, so here's my post on working vs. pet dachshunds.
I've been a huge dachshund fan going on 20 years but don't currently own one myself. My wirehaired standard unfortunately died last year. Here's a pic of her:
While I love the breed, I really don't like the direction a lot of breeders have taken, especially here in the US, where the dachshund was/is barely used for hunting anyway. It's always sad to see breeds split up into "show lines" and "working lines", but I think there are few other breeds out there affected as much as dachshunds are.
Here's a comparison table, the dogs on the left are all AKC pointed dachshunds, on the right dogs from german working lines who have either scored "sehr gut" (very good) or higher in German conformation shows, but also have performance titles and are actually used for hunting (fox, raccoon, badger etc.) and tracking:
http://mordanna.com/dachshund/dachshund.html
There are a few breeders in the US who breed to the German patent breed club's standard, but most of the "regular" breeders seem to prefer producing dogs that don't look anything like what a dachshund is supposed to look like.
I've been a huge dachshund fan going on 20 years but don't currently own one myself. My wirehaired standard unfortunately died last year. Here's a pic of her:
While I love the breed, I really don't like the direction a lot of breeders have taken, especially here in the US, where the dachshund was/is barely used for hunting anyway. It's always sad to see breeds split up into "show lines" and "working lines", but I think there are few other breeds out there affected as much as dachshunds are.
Here's a comparison table, the dogs on the left are all AKC pointed dachshunds, on the right dogs from german working lines who have either scored "sehr gut" (very good) or higher in German conformation shows, but also have performance titles and are actually used for hunting (fox, raccoon, badger etc.) and tracking:
http://mordanna.com/dachshund/dachshund.html
There are a few breeders in the US who breed to the German patent breed club's standard, but most of the "regular" breeders seem to prefer producing dogs that don't look anything like what a dachshund is supposed to look like.