Dachshund The gap between a dachshund owner who spends ten minutes negotiating with a dog wedged under the couch and one whose dog trots over on the first call has almost nothing to do with the dog. Both dachshunds are stubborn. Both were bred to dive into badger tunnels alone and make decisions without checking in first.
What separates the two groups is structure.
Owners who struggle train in bursts. A big ambitious session on Saturday, nothing until Thursday, then genuine confusion when the dog behaves like they’ve never been introduced.
Owners who succeed do something far less impressive to watch. Five minutes, twice a day, on a schedule they can actually keep, working one skill at a time until it sticks.
That is the entire trick, and it fits into a single week.
What follows is a seven day plan built around how these dogs actually learn: short bursts, high value food, nose engaged, and zero tolerance for boring repetition. Keep every session under five minutes. Stop while your dog still wants more.
One quick note before Day One: skip anything that asks your dachshund to jump down from furniture during training. Those spines deserve better.
1. Day One: Your Dog’s Name Is a Cue, Not Background Noise
Most dachshunds hear their name roughly four hundred times a day and have learned it means absolutely nothing.
Today you fix that.
The drill
Say the name once, in a bright tone, then deliver a tiny piece of chicken the instant those eyes swing toward you. Not two seconds later. Instantly.
Ten reps. Twice today. That’s it.
If your dog ignores you, you’re either too far away, too boring, or competing with something more interesting. Move closer and upgrade the treat.
Why this comes first
Recall, leash work, and impulse control all depend on one thing: your dog choosing to look at you when there’s a smell in the other direction.
A dachshund who reliably turns toward you is halfway trained. Everything else is just details you attach to that turn.
Do not add "sit" today. Do not add anything. One skill, one day.
2. Day Two: Sit, and the Word That Ends It
Sit is easy for dachshunds because their center of gravity is roughly two inches off the ground.
The hard part is teaching them the sit lasts until you say otherwise.
Building the position
Hold a treat at nose level, lift it slightly back over the head, and let gravity do the work. The moment the rear touches down, mark it with a cheerful "yes" and pay up.
Once you’ve got five easy reps, drop the lure. Use the same hand motion with an empty hand, then reward from your other hand.
Adding a release word
Pick a word: "free" and "okay" both work fine.
Ask for the sit, count one second, say the release word, and toss a treat a foot away so your dog has to get up to get it.
Slowly stretch that count to five seconds over the two sessions. Not ten. Five.
3. Day Three: The Recall Game That Can Compete With a Squirrel
Here’s where a lot of dachshund owners quietly give up.
Scent hounds have a nose that overrides their ears, and once a trail is found, your voice becomes weather. Background noise happening somewhere far away.
The fix isn’t volume. It’s making yourself worth abandoning the trail for.
Runaway recall
Start indoors, in a hallway, with the most disgusting delicious thing in your fridge. Cheese, hot dog, leftover rotisserie chicken.
Say the recall word once, then immediately run backward a few steps.
Movement away from a dachshund triggers chase instinct, which does half your work for free. When your dog catches up, throw a small party: three treats in a row, delivered one at a time, plus genuine praise.
Recall should feel like winning a lottery, not like reporting to the principal’s office.
The rule that protects your recall
Never call your dog to do something they hate.
Nail trims, bath time, the end of a fun walk: go get your dog for those things instead. The recall word only ever predicts good news.
4. Day Four: Leash Manners for a Dog Built Like a Loaf of Bread
Pulling looks harmless on a twelve pound dog, which is exactly why it never gets fixed.
It’s also rough on a long spine, so today matters more than it seems.
Start in the living room
Clip the leash on indoors where there’s nothing to smell and nobody to bark at. Walk four steps. Reward at your knee, not out in front of you, so your dog learns that the payment zone is beside your leg.
Feeling silly is normal here. Do it anyway.
The stop and wait
Head outside for round two and set one rule: a tight leash means the walk pauses.
Stop moving. Say nothing. Wait for slack to appear in the line, then walk again.
Your first outing may cover forty feet in ten minutes, and that’s a completely normal Day Four. You’re not going for a walk today, you’re teaching a lesson that happens to be outdoors.
Use a harness rather than a collar for this, always. Those necks and backs are not built to absorb sudden stops.
5. Day Five: Settle, Crate, and the Art of Being Alone
Dachshunds bond hard. Left unmanaged, that devotion curdles into a dog who screams when you go to the bathroom.
Today is about teaching your dog that stillness pays.
Capturing calm
Sit on the couch with a book and a bowl of treats. Every time your dog lies down and relaxes, drop a treat between their front paws without saying a word.
No cue, no praise, no excitement. Calm gets rewarded quietly.
Ten minutes of this does more than most people expect.
Crate as bedroom, not punishment
Toss treats into the crate and let your dog wander in and out freely. Feed dinner in there with the door open.
Later in the day, close the door for ten seconds while your dog eats a stuffed chew, then open it before there’s any complaint.
The crate should be the place your dog goes when they want a nap, not the place they get sent when you’ve run out of patience.
6. Day Six: Barking, Doorbells, and the Alert Dog Problem
Nobody told your dachshund they weren’t hired as security. They took the job anyway.
The goal here isn’t silence. It’s a shorter alarm.
Teach the alternative
Have someone knock on the door while you stand near your dog with treats ready.
Let two or three barks happen, then say "thank you" and scatter a handful of treats on the floor a few feet from the door.
Sniffing and barking cannot happen at the same time, which is why scattering works better than shushing.
Practice the boring version
Repeat the knock six or seven times across the day until the sound gets dull.
A doorbell that has predicted treats twenty times stops being an emergency. Repetition drains drama out of a trigger better than any correction ever will.
7. Day Seven: Take the Whole Thing on the Road
Everything your dog learned this week currently only exists in your house.
Today you find out how much of it travels.
Change one thing at a time
Head to the front yard and run through name response, sit with a release, and one short recall.
Expect worse performance. Outdoor grass holds roughly nine thousand smells, and your dog is not being defiant, just outvoted by their own nose.
Make it easier: shorter distances, better treats, fewer reps.
Where to go next
Once the yard feels solid, move to the sidewalk, then a quiet park at an off hour, then somewhere with mild distractions like a hardware store parking lot.
Each new location is a fresh start with an old skill. Drop your standards on arrival, then build them back up over a few sessions.
Keep running these five minute blocks after the week ends, rotating through whichever skill looks shakiest that day. A dachshund who trains a little bit daily will quietly outperform one who trains hard on Sundays, every single time.