Post date: Jun 05, 2012 12:22:50 PM
The report on Dachshund Behaviour and Temperament has now been published. You can view it online here, or download a pdf here.
The majority (85%) of Dachshunds were described by their owners as Always or Often Outgoing and Friendly, but 1 in 50 was described as Never behaving in this way. Just over two-thirds of dogs were described as Always or Often Excitable and Active. We tend to describe Dachshunds as being a noisy breed, after all they were originally developed to have a loud bark. 15% of owners said theirs Always or Often barks excessively or persistently.
Anecdotally, the Miniature Dachshunds are often described as being more difficult to house-train than the Standards. Overall, nearly one third of owners said their Dachshund had house-training issues to some degree. Data later in this report will show the differences between each of the six varieties, which does support the anecdotal views. Four out of five owners said their Dachshund is not a submissive piddler.
Just under a third of owners said their Dachshund suffered from Separation Anxiety to some extent and a quarter suffer from noise or thunderstorm fear. Around a quarter were also reported as being destructive. As stated above, we don’t know how much exercise these particular dogs get, so cannot deduce whether or not a lack of exercise is a causal factor in these behaviours.
1 in 10 is, to some extent, aggressive with people and nearly 1 in 3 is aggressive with other dogs, to some extent. 7 out of 10 were described as Never being nervous or fearful of people.
Taking the “Always” and “Never” scores for the positive traits and negative traits, it is possible to calculate an overall ranking for temperament and behaviour: