Dachshund Stubborn is the wrong word.
That label gets slapped on every long dog with short legs, usually by someone who just spent nine minutes calling a name across a backyard while a small brown blur ignored them with total commitment.
Here is what was actually happening in that yard. A dog bred to squeeze into a badger tunnel, alone, in the dark, was making decisions without waiting for permission. Independence was the entire job description, and nobody has bothered to update the memo in three hundred years.
So the training problem is not defiance. The training problem is that most advice was written for retrievers, and a retriever wants to please you in a way a doxie simply does not.
Once you stop fighting the hunting brain and start hiring it, things get strange in the best way. Behaviors that took weeks start landing in days.
Below are seven techniques that feel a little like sorcery, mostly because they were built around this breed instead of borrowed from another one.
1. Put the Nose on the Payroll
A dachshund’s nose is not a cute accessory. It is the primary operating system, and everything else, including your voice, runs as a background app.
Fighting that is a losing game. Feeding it works shockingly well.
Start With Three Boxes
Take three cardboard boxes, hide a smelly treat under one, and let your dog work the puzzle. No commands, no corrections, no help from you.
Watch what happens to the frantic energy. It drains out through the nose.
A tired nose beats a tired body every single time with this breed.
Ten minutes of scent work exhausts a dachshund more thoroughly than a mile walk, and an exhausted dachshund is a dog who suddenly finds your training requests very reasonable.
Then Make It Portable
Scatter kibble in the grass before you ask for anything difficult. You are essentially letting the hunting brain clock in and clock out before class starts.
2. Pay in Currency That Actually Spends
Kibble is a paycheck. Freeze dried liver is a bonus with a handwritten thank you note attached.
Plenty of owners quit training because "he isn’t food motivated," which is almost never true. He is just not motivated by that food, at that price, for that amount of effort.
Build a Payment Ladder
Rank your treats into three tiers: boring, good, and unreasonable. Boring treats pay for behaviors your dog already knows in a quiet kitchen.
Unreasonable treats (chicken, cheese, tiny slivers of hot dog) get reserved for the hard stuff, like coming back when a squirrel is present.
Nobody works overtime for the same wage. Your dog included.
3. Train in Bursts That End Too Soon
Long sessions are where enthusiasm goes to die. Three minutes, five reps, done.
Stop while your dog still wants more. That leftover appetite is the whole trick, because it means the next session starts with a dog dragging you toward the treat pouch instead of drifting toward the couch.
Use the Doorway Rule
Every time you walk past a doorway, ask for one thing. One sit, one touch, one eye contact, then move on with your life.
Twenty of those scattered through a day beats a single dreary twenty minute session, and neither of you has to schedule anything.
Short and frequent builds habits. Long and occasional builds resentment.
4. Make Coming Back the Best Deal Available
Recall is the technique that saves lives, and it is also the one most likely to be ruined by accident.
Here is the classic mistake: calling your dog, then immediately doing something the dog hates. Leash on, fun over, back in the car. Do that six times and your dog learns that your voice predicts the end of joy.
Reverse the Association
Call, pay generously, then release your dog back to whatever they were sniffing. The recall becomes a quick interruption rather than a life sentence.
Never Call for Bad News
Nail trims, bath time, medicine: go get your dog instead of calling them. Protect that word like it costs money, because someday it will be the only thing standing between your dog and a busy street.
Practice it in the hallway. Practice it in the yard. Practice it while you are holding roast chicken and your dog is fourteen feet away doing absolutely nothing interesting, because easy reps build the muscle that hard moments require.
5. Reward the Quiet, Not the Bark
That enormous voice came standard. It was meant to travel through packed dirt so a hunter could locate a dog working underground, which explains why it feels like a car alarm in a two bedroom apartment.
Yelling at a barking dachshund is, from the dog’s point of view, joining in.
Catch the Gap
Wait for the half second of silence between barks and mark it. Say "yes," pay immediately, and repeat.
You are not teaching quiet as a command yet. You are teaching your dog that silence is the thing that opens the treat vault.
Pre Empt the Trigger
Feed a few pieces of chicken before the mail carrier arrives, not after the barking starts. Timing is the difference between changing an emotion and rewarding a tantrum.
Whatever gets your attention gets repeated, and dachshunds are keeping detailed notes.
6. Turn the Crate Into a Den Worth Defending
Burrowing is not a quirk. It is hardwired, and it is the single biggest advantage you have in crate and potty training.
Most dogs tolerate a crate. A dachshund can genuinely love one, provided it looks less like a cage and more like a tunnel.
Add Layers, Not Space
Skip the enormous crate. Choose something snug, throw in a blanket your dog can dig under, and drape a cover over the top so light comes from one direction only.
Toss treats inside without closing the door. Let curiosity do the work for a few days before anything latches.
Feed Every Meal in There
Dinner in the crate, every night, no exceptions for a month. Food does more for crate training than patience ever will, and it happens faster than you would expect.
7. Protect the Spine While You Teach
This one is not glamorous, but it is the technique that keeps your dog training for another decade.
That long back carries real risk. Certain popular tricks, particularly sitting up on the hind legs to beg, load the spine in a way this breed does not need.
Swap the Trick, Keep the Fun
Teach "touch" instead: your dog boops their nose against your open palm. It is quick, it looks adorable, it burns mental energy, and it puts zero strain on the back.
Spin, place, and find it are all excellent substitutes. None of them ask a dog to balance vertically on a spine built horizontally.
Train the Ramp Like a Behavior
Ramps and stairs should be trained deliberately, with treats, in a calm room, long before your dog needs them. Wait until an injury happens and you will be asking a dog in pain to learn something new.
Lay the ramp flat first. Reward stepping on it. Raise it an inch at a time over a week, and keep the whole thing boring and easy.
A dog who uses a ramp cheerfully is a dog who is not launching off the back of the sofa eleven times a day, and that is training doing its real job.