Dachshund Can a dog built like a furry submarine really learn ten tricks in two days?
That question hangs over every dachshund owner who has ever watched their hound stare blankly at a treat, fully aware of what’s being asked, fully committed to ignoring it.
Here’s the thing about dachshunds: they are not slow learners. They’re negotiators. Bred to go underground alone and make life-or-death decisions without a human shouting directions, they developed a brain that asks "what’s in it for me?" before it asks "what do you want?"
Which means the weekend plan works. It just has to be built around a badger hunter’s ego instead of a Labrador’s eagerness.
Grab a bag of soft, smelly treats. Cut them small. Let’s go.
1. The Sit That Actually Sticks
Most dachshunds already know sit. What they don’t know is that sit means stay seated until further notice.
Hold a treat just above the nose, move it back over the head, and let the rear end drop naturally. No pushing on the spine. Long backs and human hands are a terrible combination.
The trick to making it stick over a weekend is duration. Reward at one second, then three, then eight, then back down to two so the game stays winnable.
A dachshund who gets it right nine times out of ten is a dachshund who keeps playing. Make it too hard and they simply resign.
Saturday morning, ten minutes. That’s the whole session.
Why Short Sessions Beat Long Ones
Their attention span is roughly the length of a commercial break.
Three five minute sessions spread across a day will outperform one thirty minute marathon every single time, and they’ll finish the day still wanting more.
2. Spin
Pure showmanship, and dachshunds are shameless hams.
Lure the nose in a slow circle with a treat, keeping it close to the head so they turn rather than walk. The first few attempts will look like a dog chasing a rumor.
Say nothing for the first dozen reps. Add the word "spin" only once the movement is smooth, because naming a sloppy behavior locks in the sloppiness.
By Sunday afternoon you’ll be able to drop the treat entirely and just twirl a finger.
3. Paw and Its Sneaky Cousin, High Five
Dachshunds love using their front feet. It’s in the wiring.
Close a treat in your fist and hold it at chest height. They will nose it, lick it, and eventually get frustrated enough to swat. That swat is the moment. Open the hand instantly.
Once paw is reliable, tilt your open palm upright and you’ve got a high five. Same behavior, new picture.
Making It Look Impressive
Add a second cue on the other hand and you have "double high five," which sounds advanced and takes about four extra minutes.
4. Roll Over (With a Back-Friendly Twist)
Here’s where breed anatomy matters. A full flopping roll on a hard floor is not doing that spine any favors.
Do it on carpet or a folded blanket. Start from a down, lure the nose toward the shoulder until they tip onto one hip, then keep going slowly.
Reward the tipping. Reward the halfway point. The complete roll usually shows up on its own by the fifteenth rep.
If your dog has any history of back trouble, skip this one entirely and teach two more from the list instead. No trick is worth a disc.
5. Speak, and More Importantly, Quiet
Every dachshund owner reading this just laughed out loud.
Yes, teaching a dachshund to bark on cue seems like handing a toddler a bullhorn. But putting the bark on cue is exactly how you get access to the off switch.
Trigger a natural bark (doorbell, a knock on the table, holding a treat just out of reach and waiting). Mark it. Name it "speak."
Then, the moment they pause for breath, mark that silence and call it "quiet."
Barking you can start is barking you can stop. Uncontrolled noise is a habit; cued noise is a conversation.
Two days of this won’t cure a dedicated barker. It will, however, give you a vocabulary you both understand.
6. Touch (The Trick That Fixes Other Problems)
Present a flat palm. When the nose bumps it, mark and treat.
That’s it. That’s the whole trick, and it’s quietly the most useful thing on this entire list.
Touch gets a distracted dachshund to look away from a squirrel. It gets a nervous one to approach a stranger’s hand on their own terms. It moves a stubborn one off the couch without a single tug on the collar.
Building It Into Something Bigger
Once the nose bump is solid, start moving your hand: low, high, off to one side, a few steps away. Suddenly you’re teaching recall without ever saying the word "come."
7. Weave Through Your Legs
Long dog, short legs, human tunnel. It’s a natural fit and it looks fantastic on video.
Stand with your feet apart and lure them through the gap from behind. Reward on the other side. Then step forward and repeat with the opposite leg.
Expect chaos for five minutes and competence by the tenth. Their body is basically designed for tight spaces.
8. Take a Bow
The elegant one. Front end down, back end up, tail waving like a metronome.
Start with the dog standing. Lure the nose straight down between the front paws and hold it there, resisting the urge to pull it forward (that just produces a down).
The second the elbows touch the floor with the rear still up, mark it. That half second is the whole behavior.
Bow is also a genuine stretch for a long back, which makes it one of the few tricks that pays a physical dividend.
9. Find It
Take everything a dachshund was bred to do and turn it into a party trick.
Show them a treat, let them watch you place it under an upturned cup or behind a chair leg, then release with "find it." Their nose does the rest.
Progress to hiding it while they wait in another room. By Sunday evening you can hide a treat in a different part of the house and watch a small hound systematically clear a room like a detective.
The Best Part
This is the one trick that tires them out mentally. Fifteen minutes of scent work drains a dachshund more thoroughly than a two mile walk, which is enormously useful information on a rainy Tuesday.
10. Play Dead
Saved the drama for last, because it deserves the applause.
Build it from a down. Lure the nose toward the shoulder, exactly like the first half of a roll over, and stop when they tip onto their side. Mark it there.
Add a finger gun and a theatrical "bang" once the collapse is reliable. The cue can be anything; dachshunds don’t care about the words, only the pattern.
Dogs don’t learn language. They learn what predicts what. Say "bang" the same way, in the same posture, every time, and the word becomes meaningful without ever being understood.
Expect a dachshund to add their own flourish here. Some go limp. Some sigh. One in ten will roll all the way onto their back with all four legs in the air, and that dog will get more attention at the dog park than any purebred show champion.
Making the Weekend Actually Work
Ten tricks in two days sounds ambitious until you do the math: five minutes per trick, three times a day, across two days. That’s under three hours total, broken into pieces so small your dog never gets bored.
Keep the treats tiny. A weekend of training on full sized biscuits is a weekend of adding weight to a spine that doesn’t need it.
End every session while they still want to continue. The dog who walks away wanting more comes back sharper tomorrow.
And when your dachshund decides, midway through session four, that they’ve heard enough and would prefer to lie in a sunbeam? Let them.
That’s not failure. That’s just a hound reminding you who negotiated the terms.