CHAPTER LIV 



The Dachshund 



HE dachshund is the only dog classified as a sporting dog by 

 the American Kennel Club which is neither a hound nor a 

 dog exclusively used with the gun. That it is used occasion- 

 ally as a hound in the sense that it follows rabbits and 

 hares by scent as does a beagle, does not alter the fact 

 that it is essentially a dog that goes to earth and is therefore a terrier. Its 

 name of badger dog is all the evidence needed on that point, and that it can 

 be made use of as a beagle does not alter the fact that it is properly an 

 earth dog, any more than the occasional use of fox terriers for rabbit cours- 

 ing makes them whippets. They are now recognized as essentially a dog of 

 Germany, although there can be no doubt that they were found throughout 

 Western Europe at an early date. The description of the French dogs, given 

 in the old French sporting books copied by early English writers as apply- 

 ing to English terriers, leaves no doubt as to the dachshund being then a dog 

 known and used in France. It is very true that they were called bassets, but 

 what we know as bassets could not have gone to earth, and the name was at 

 that time merely indicative of their being low dogs, though it must be ad- 

 mitted that the name was also applied to the taller, rough dog. Appar- 

 ently the French gave up the small, smooth, crooked-legged dog, and it 

 remained for the Germans to continue his use and develop him into the 

 teckel, or dachshund, whose peculiar formation has turned many a penny 

 for the comic newspaper illustrator. f 



Notwithstanding the distinctly German origin of the modern dachshund, 

 it is due to the English fanciers to state that they were the pioneers in giving 

 the dog the distinction of a specialty club, for as early as 1881 there was a 

 dachshund club in England, and that was not established until the breed 

 had been recognised for eight years as entitled to individual classification. 

 The Crystal Palace show of 1873, not Birmingham in 1872, as given by Mr. 

 Marples in "Show dogs," was the first to give a class for the breed which, 



from 1866 up to that time, had been included in the class for foreign sporting 



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