Dachshund Something separates the dachshund owners who calmly hand over a chew toy from the ones who come home to shredded baseboards, and it has almost nothing to do with luck or "good dogs."
The difference is that one group figured out why the chewing was happening before they tried to stop it. The other group went straight to bitter spray and hoped.
Dachshunds chew with a specific kind of intensity that surprises people who expected a small dog to do small damage. That long body was engineered to go into badger dens and stay there, which means stubbornness and jaw commitment come standard.
So let’s build you an actual plan.
Step 1: Rule Out The Boring Stuff First
Before you buy a single toy, get honest about the basics.
Age matters enormously. A four month old puppy chewing your shoe is doing developmental work. A five year old dachshund suddenly destroying the couch arm is telling you something changed.
Teething runs roughly from three to seven months, and during that window the chewing is not a behavior problem at all. It’s a physical need.
If your dog is an adult and this behavior is new, book a vet visit before you do anything else. Dental pain, nausea, and even certain skin conditions can drive sudden chewing, and no training plan on earth fixes a toothache.
A dog who chews because something hurts will not respond to redirection. They will respond to treatment.
Also worth checking: has anything in the household shifted? New work schedule, new baby, a move, a change in who’s home during the day.
Dachshunds are famously velcro-like. Disruption registers.
Step 2: Identify Which Type Of Chewer You Have
Not all destructive chewing comes from the same place, and the fix depends entirely on the source.
Spend three or four days just observing. When does it happen? What gets chewed? Is your dog relaxed while doing it or frantic?
The Bored Chewer
This dog chews midday, chews casually, and often picks objects that are fun to destroy rather than objects that smell like you.
Cardboard, table legs, throw pillows. The chewing is entertainment.
Bored chewers are the easiest to fix, and honestly the most common. A dachshund who gets a twenty minute walk and nothing else is running a scent hound brain on almost zero input.
The Anxious Chewer
Very different profile. This dog targets doors, window frames, crates, and anything that smells strongly of their person.
Chewing tends to spike within the first thirty minutes after you leave. You may also see pacing, drooling, or accidents from a fully house trained dog.
Anxious chewing is not solved with more toys. It’s solved by addressing the anxiety, which we’ll get to.
The Under-Exercised Chewer
Overlaps with boredom but deserves its own category because the fix is different.
This dog has energy in the tank at 9pm and no way to spend it. The chewing has a manic quality, and it often comes with zoomies, barking, and general household chaos.
Step 3: Puppy-Proof Like You Mean It
Management is not cheating. Management is what buys you time while training catches up.
Get on the floor. Seriously, get down at dachshund height and look around, because that low sightline reveals a completely different set of temptations than you notice standing up.
Cords, shoe racks, the underside of dining chairs, the corner of the rug. All of it looks accessible from eight inches off the ground.
Use baby gates to shrink the territory. A dachshund who has run of a four bedroom house has four bedrooms worth of chewable objects.
Every unsupervised success your dog has at chewing the wrong thing makes the habit stronger. Prevention is doing real work here, not just protecting your furniture.
Step 4: Give Them Something Better To Chew
Now you can shop, and now it will actually work.
Dachshunds need chews with some structural integrity. Soft plush toys get gutted in four minutes and then you’re picking stuffing out of the carpet.
Good options include rubber toys you can stuff and freeze, bully sticks, natural rubber chews sized for small breeds, and puzzle feeders that make them work for kibble.
Rotate them. A toy that’s been in the bin for a week comes back interesting.
Novelty is a resource. Treat it like one and you’ll get twice the mileage out of the toys you already own.
Skip anything harder than a fingernail can dent. Antlers, hooves, and bone can fracture teeth, and dachshund dental work is expensive and unpleasant for everyone involved.
Make The Frozen Kong Your Default
If you take one product recommendation from this whole article, take this.
Stuff a rubber toy with wet food, plain yogurt, pumpkin, or soaked kibble, then freeze it overnight. You’ve just turned a five minute snack into a forty five minute project.
Hand it over right as you leave the house. Two problems solved at once.
Step 5: Redirect, Don’t Punish
Here’s where a lot of well meaning owners lose ground.
When you catch your dachshund chewing something forbidden, the instinct is to scold. Resist it.
Punishment teaches a dachshund to chew when you’re not looking. It doesn’t teach them what to chew instead.
Instead, interrupt with a neutral sound. A clap, a cheerful "hey," anything that breaks focus without frightening.
Then immediately offer an approved chew. When they take it, praise like they’ve done something brilliant.
You’re not correcting a crime. You’re building an association: chewing this thing produces good outcomes.
Repeat this maybe forty times over two weeks and the pattern locks in. Dachshunds are smart, but they are also selectively deaf when it suits them, so consistency does the heavy lifting.
Step 6: Fix The Energy Equation
A tired dachshund chews less. This is not complicated, but the type of tired matters.
Physical exercise alone often isn’t enough. These dogs were bred to problem solve underground, following scent trails and making independent decisions in the dark.
Add mental work and the whole picture changes.
Try scatter feeding kibble in the grass, snuffle mats, hiding treats around a room and letting them hunt, or five minutes of trick training before you leave for work.
Ten minutes of nosework tires a dachshund more thoroughly than a thirty minute walk. That’s not an exaggeration.
For the walk itself, let them sniff. A "sniffari" where your dog sets the pace and route delivers far more enrichment than a brisk march around the block.
Just watch the back. Long spines and repeated jumping don’t mix, so keep exercise ground level and avoid stairs and furniture leaps where you can.
Step 7: Address Separation Anxiety Directly
If you identified an anxious chewer back in step two, this section is the one that matters.
Start by making departures boring. No long emotional goodbyes, no dramatic greetings when you return.
Then desensitize the cues. Pick up your keys and sit back down. Put your coat on and make coffee.
Your dachshund has learned that keys mean abandonment. You’re teaching them that keys mean nothing.
Next, practice micro-absences. Step outside for ten seconds, come back in, act like it’s nothing at all.
Build from ten seconds to a minute, then five, then fifteen. Progress is slow and that’s normal.
The goal isn’t to teach your dog to tolerate being alone. It’s to teach them that being alone is unremarkable.
If your dog is panicking rather than just protesting, loop in your vet or a certified behaviorist. Genuine separation anxiety sometimes needs medication alongside training, and there’s no shame in that at all.
Step 8: Track It For Two Weeks
Keep a simple note on your phone. Date, time, what got chewed, what was happening before.
Patterns emerge fast when you write things down. You might discover that every incident happens on Tuesdays, or always after a short morning walk, or only when a particular family member leaves.
That data tells you which step to double down on.
Most owners see meaningful improvement inside three weeks. Puppies take longer because they’re also growing through it, and adult dogs with entrenched habits may need a full month or two.
Adjust one variable at a time so you know what’s working. Change five things at once and you’ll never learn which one mattered.