Dachshunds have both good and bad behaviour, which can affect dog training time and also affect your dog training will easy or hard. No doubt, dachshunds have many good habits, such as being very affectionate, loyal to their owner, but sometimes they can show a bit of problematic behaviour that can irritate the dachshund owner. I have also owned a dachshund for several years. I also have some experience with this dog, and today in this blog, I will share with you some common dachshund behaviour problems and effective solutions for these.
Excessive Barking
Excessive barking a one of the behaviours that often irritate many dachshund owners. Dachshunds can bark for various reasons, such as feeling insecure, fear, separation anxiety, and dominant behaviour. Sometimes this can be problematic, especially when we live in an area where many people come and go to our home. At this time, they bark at them, which is problematic and something concerning. If you live in a village area with your dog, it can be easy to get used to it, but when you live in a city area, this can be problematic.
But good news is we can train your dachshund dog for not barking a lot, we also already write a comprehensive post about dachshund barking problem you can check it out after reading this, which is quite helpful for reducing a dachshund barking problem.
Stubbornness
This is also one of the problematic dachshund traits among many dachshund owners. Their independent and stubborn nature can hinder the training process, and even after lots of training, sometimes they can refuse your command.
I also faced this issue a lot when I was in the initial phase of dachshund owning. While this problematic behaviour also has its own benefits, it teaches you “what discipline is in life”, consistency is biggest factor of success whether it’s in dog training or your professional carrier.
What do you think about my opinion? Comment down below.
Separation Anxiety
Dachshund are loyal and easy bondable dog with their close person, which is a good trait, but sometimes it can be problematic also. When you need to go away form your dog in that situation they are easily stressed anxious even for short period of time, they cant stay alone. When you left alone them they show unsteady behaviour like excessive barking and many others.
And when you need to leave your dog alone for something, you need to train your dog to stay home without you. We already provide a detailed blog about dealing with dachshund separation anxiety, you can check it after reading this.
Aggression
Dachshunds can be aggressive for various reasons. They are a naturally aggressive dog breed, which is also reasonable with their bred purpose; they were originally bred for hunting badgers, and hunting dogs are naturally aggressive. Like the other behaviour I listed above, this is also problematic in various situations. Dachshund’s aggression has different downsides depending on the situation. Like other behaviours, this can also be reduced by a structured training approach. We already wrote a post about calming a dachshund, you can also check out after this one.
Resource Guarding
Dachshunds are protective of their things, like toys, their owner, bed, etc. While this is not only applied in dachshund, almost every breed of dog gets angry when someone touches their stuff, it is natural to some extent, but it becomes problematic when our dog starts to show guarding behaviour strongly. To reduce resource guarding in your dachshund, you can use various training approaches like Teach ‘Trade” or “Drop It”.
In this training method, we use their favourite and high-value treat rather than what they are guarding, then we calmly say ‘drop it’, ‘trade it’, and then offer a treat. After releasing an object by your dog, you give praise and a treat. This will eventually help to change your dog’s resource guarding habit into a resource sharing habit.
Digging
Digging is a deeply ingrained behaviour in dachshunds, rooted in their history as hunting dogs bred to chase and flush out burrowing animals like badgers. They dig in our garden and destroy all plants and vegetables, sometimes they also dig in the bed. This habit of your dog can be problematic in our daily life, especially when you have a garden. They will destroy your garden’s small plants and vegetables.
Your dog can show digging behaviour for various reasons; they mostly do it to entertain themselves, seek comfort, or it can be a sign of anxiety and excess energy. To reduce digging behaviour in your dachshund, you need to include training effective training approach in their daily routine.
We can also make a specific digging area for our dog to dig in a specific area using a sandpit. For making a digging area from a sandpit, we need to place this in shaded area and fill it with safe digging material like play sand. After filling sand in it you can encourage your dog to dig there. This will be hard at first, but when your dog being used to it its being lots of easier to manage dachshund digging behaviour.
Positive reinforcement can be a best training approach for this problem. For reducing digging behaviour by positive reinforcement technique, we praise our dachshund when they show right behaviour like not digging or digging in specific area which is especially made for digging. This is helpful for your dog to doing the right activity repeatedly.
Conclusion
Dachshunds have both good and bad traits. We are all familiar with both their behaviour and personality. All dog breeds have some good and bad traits. While dachshunds have many good traits over their bad traits. Their loyal, affectionate and bondable character stands out from other dog breeds. They also have some bad behaviour and traits like stubbornness, aggression, they are sensitive to aloneness and prone to separation anxiety, resource guarding and digging in unwanted areas like the bed and garden, but with patience and consistency in training, we can solve our dachshund behaviour problems.
