Dachshund Espresso machines and dachshunds have more in common than anyone wants to admit.
Both are small. Both are loud. Both go from completely still to fully operational in about a second and a half, usually with a noise that startles the room.
The difference is that you can unplug an espresso machine.
A dachshund running at full excitement is a different project entirely. There’s no off switch, no steam wand, no little dial that lowers the pressure. There’s just a long dog vibrating at a frequency that seems physically impossible for something with those legs.
But here’s the good news: overexcitement is trainable. Not overnight, and not with one magic trick, but with a plan you can actually follow.
Below is that plan, step by step.
Step 1: Figure Out What’s Actually Setting Him Off
Before you change anything, you need information.
Most owners assume their dachshund is "just excitable," which is a bit like saying a car is "just loud." Loud when? Loud doing what? The details matter, because the trigger determines the fix.
Spend three or four days paying close attention. Keep notes on your phone if that helps.
The Usual Suspects
Dachshunds tend to combust around a predictable set of things:
- The doorbell, or any knock
- You coming home, especially if you make a fuss about it
- Leashes being touched, moved, or looked at
- Other dogs appearing at any distance
- Squirrels, cats, and anything that moves fast and low
- Mealtime prep sounds
- Visitors, particularly ones who greet the dog first
Write down what happened right before the explosion, how long it lasted, and how long it took him to settle afterward.
That last number is the one people skip, and it’s the most useful one you have.
A dog who takes twenty minutes to come down from a two minute burst isn’t an excitable dog. That’s a dog living in a state of low grade arousal all day long, with excitement as the visible part.
Step 2: Lower the Baseline Before You Fix the Peaks
Here’s something that trips up a lot of owners.
You cannot train calm into a dog who spends his entire day already halfway wound up. The peaks are just the part you notice.
So before working on doorbell manners, work on the other twenty three hours.
Give Him Something to Do With His Nose
Dachshunds were bred to follow scent underground, alone, making decisions without you. That brain doesn’t switch off because he lives in an apartment now.
Scatter his kibble in the grass instead of using a bowl. Hide treats around one room and let him hunt. Buy a snuffle mat, or make one out of a towel by rolling treats inside it.
Ten minutes of sniffing tires a dachshund out more thoroughly than a thirty minute walk. It’s not close.
Watch the Sleep
Adult dogs need somewhere between fourteen and sixteen hours of sleep a day. Puppies need more.
An under rested dachshund looks exactly like an overexcited one, which is why so many people misdiagnose the problem entirely.
If your dog is following you room to room all day, never fully settling, he’s probably not getting real sleep. He’s getting naps interrupted by vigilance.
Set up a quiet spot away from foot traffic. A covered crate works well. So does a bed in a spare room with the door cracked.
Cut the Arousal Games
Hard fetch, tug that goes on forever, wrestling on the floor, chase games with the kids.
All fun. All arousal building.
You don’t have to eliminate them, but you should notice when they happen. A big chase session an hour before guests arrive is setting yourself up.
Step 3: Teach a Settle on Cue
This is the core skill. Everything else builds on it.
The goal is a dog who can lie down and switch off on request, not just when he’s already tired.
The Method
Put a mat or towel on the floor. Something with clear edges he can feel.
Sit near it with a handful of small, soft treats.
When he touches the mat with any part of himself, drop a treat onto it. Say nothing. Don’t lure him, don’t point, don’t repeat his name.
Wait. Let him figure it out.
He’ll start offering more mat contact because the mat pays. When he lies down on it, drop three treats in a row instead of one.
Building the Duration
Once he’s lying down reliably, start counting.
Wait two seconds before the treat. Then five. Then ten. Then mix it up, because predictable timing keeps him alert and watching you.
Deliver treats between his front paws, low and slow. Tossing them makes him get up. Low delivery reinforces the down position itself.
When he can hold a down for thirty seconds, add your word. "Settle" works. So does "mat" or "bed."
The word comes last, always. Naming a behavior before the dog can perform it just teaches him that the word is meaningless noise.
Practice this in a boring room first. Then a slightly more interesting one. Then with the TV on, then with someone walking past, then near the front door.
Ten sessions of two minutes beats two sessions of ten minutes.
Step 4: Rehearse the Doorbell Until It’s Boring
The doorbell deserves its own step, because it’s the number one complaint and it responds beautifully to repetition.
Break It Into Pieces
Right now the doorbell means: stranger, excitement, everything happening at once.
Your job is to make it mean something duller.
Ring it yourself. Don’t answer the door. Just ring it, walk away, and do nothing.
Do this fifteen times in a row. He’ll lose interest around ring number eight, and that loss of interest is the entire point.
Add the Settle
Once ringing alone stops producing fireworks, ring it and cue the settle. Reward heavily when he goes to his mat.
Then ring it, cue the settle, and walk toward the door. Come back without opening it.
Then open it to nobody.
Then have a friend stand outside. Then have the friend come in and ignore the dog completely for two full minutes.
Each of those is a separate training session. Rushing through them is how the whole thing falls apart.
Step 5: Change How You Come Home
This one costs you nothing and works fast.
Walking through the door and immediately greeting your dachshund in a high pitched voice teaches him that your arrival is the biggest event of the day.
So stop doing that.
Come in. Take your shoes off. Put your bag down. Check your mail.
Greet him when he’s stopped bouncing, and greet him calmly, crouched down, with slow hands.
The first week he’ll try harder, because the thing that used to work isn’t working. Hold the line. Around day five or six it clicks, and the greeting ritual quietly deflates.
Step 6: Manage the Leash Before You Manage the Walk
Half of dachshund walk chaos happens indoors, before the door even opens.
Pick up the leash. If he explodes, put it back down. Sit.
Pick it up again thirty seconds later. Put it down again.
Repeat until picking up the leash produces nothing more dramatic than a look.
Then clip it on, and unclip it. Then clip it on and sit down. Then clip it on, walk to the door, and stay there.
You are removing meaning from each individual step, one at a time.
Every time you open the door while your dachshund is airborne, you have paid him for being airborne. Dogs learn from what works, not from what we intended.
Once outside, use a harness rather than a collar. Dachshund necks and spines are not built to absorb the force of a lunge, and a Y front harness spreads that load across the chest.
Step 7: Know When It’s Not Excitement
Some dogs who look overexcited are actually anxious, uncomfortable, or in pain.
Back pain is common in this breed and it can present as restlessness, pacing, and an inability to settle.
If your dachshund’s excitement came on suddenly, or arrived alongside reluctance to jump, a changed gait, or new sensitivity when handled, get him checked before you train anything.
Training an uncomfortable dog just frustrates everyone.
Step 8: Track It, Because Progress Is Invisible Day to Day
Go back to the notes you made in Step 1.
Once a week, write down the same three things: what triggered him, how big the reaction was on a scale of one to ten, and how long recovery took.
Recovery time drops first. The intensity of the initial reaction is usually the last thing to change, which is why owners give up right before it works.
Six weeks of consistent, boring, unglamorous repetition will get you a dog who still gets excited, because he’s a dachshund, but who comes back down in ninety seconds instead of twenty minutes.
That’s the whole goal. Not a calm dachshund.
A dachshund who knows how to become calm.