Hunting is, after all, what your dachshund was bred to do. Though most lie lives of luxury that involve a lot of sitting on couches, even the most pampered of dachshunds is ready to go to earth at the slightest provocation. In fact, they may be some of the smallest hunters out there, but their natural instincts to chase down other creatures remains as strong as you might imagine five-hundred years of selective breeding.
Though few people bother hunting down badgers, the dachshund is also very good at finding rabbits - in fact, the miniature and teckel sub-breeds were designed to do just that. Often such hunting is best done in pairs, with one dog flushing the warren from one side while the other looks for rabbits coming out the exits.
If hunting alone with a single dachshund, all manner of game can be flushed, but the element of surprise is required. This means that you'll have to train your dog to stay quietly by your side before running into the brush. Of course, dachshunds are not particularly fast compared with some other dogs, but game can't help be terrified of the scent of dog, no matter how big the dog actually is.
The hard part often is calling the dog off when it's time to dispatch with some of the creatures, though you might be surprised at the size of a creature your dog is able to dispatch without any help from you at all. When left to their own devices, it is not uncommon to see a dachshund break the neck of prey twice its size. Though such feats are less common with older dogs, most dachshunds are able to keep this sort of stamina up well into their double digits.
Just as dachshunds are good at tracking wounded or deceased people as cadaver dogs at the site of great tragedies (such as earthquakes), they are also very good at tracking wounded game, no matter how big it is. Their noses are very keen, and they'll follow such a trail for miles if necessary. They are usually silent when on a scent and can take brambles and thorny paths without being injured as a larger dog would.
More usual game includes foxes, raccoons, rabbits, woodchucks and all types of vermin. Interestingly, one of their best uses is as a companion to a hunting hawk or falcon. If the dog can be trained to leave the raptor alone (and they almost always can, as dachshunds are a bit leery of large birds), they work well, flushing game for the falcon to then take down.
Many hunters appreciate how portabel the dachshund is, able to sit on top of a all-terrain vehicle or sitting on the hunter's lap. Indeed, these wee hunting dogs bond far more intimately with their human partners than many larger dogs that ride home in the back of the truck.
The use of hunting dachshunds has gone up steadily in the last decade. Since 2000, there have been enough dachshund hunting enthusiasts in the United States to support a club there that is modelled on the German Deutscher Teckelklub.
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