The Standard:
Colours and Varieties of Coat
The Dachshund is bred in three sizes (Standard, Miniature and Kaninchen) and with three varieties of coat (smooth, wirehaired and longhaired) reaching an amount of nine breeds: smooth Standard, smooth Miniature, smooth Kaninchen, wirehaired Standard, wirehaired Miniature, wirehaired Kaninchen, longhaired Standard, longhaired Miniature, longhaired Kaninchen.
Smooth, Wirehaired and Longhaired
In accordance with the Standard smooth Dachshunds show “a thick, bright, smooth, tight, strong and hard coat. Areas without coat are not allowed”. “Longer hairs on the underside of the tail” are not a fault.
“With the exception of muzzle, eyebrows and ears”, wirehaired Dachshunds are covered by “a uniform, hard, thick and tight coat provided with undercoat”. The muzzle shows “a pronounced beard” and “bushy eyebrows”.
On the ears the coat is shorter than on the whole body and almost smooth.
“The tail is covered with uniform, dense hairs.”
Both subjects provided with any sort of soft coat, with no undercoat, and subjects, whose coat remains short, with no beard and eyebrows, are considered exceptions and can’t get more than a “sufficient” mark.
Longhaired Dachshunds coat has to be “sleek, glistening, longer under the neck and on the underside of the body; it hangs from the ears and becomes much longer on the hind legs. It’s on the tail that the hair attains its greatest length and forms a veritable flag”.
This pattern of Dachshund is, surely, the most elegant and aristocratic; the growth of its coat is closely related to the age and would be considered finished in about three years.
Colours
Mostly, shorthaired Dachshunds are red or black and tan, wirehaired are wild boar (with different shades from light to very dark) and longhaired are red, dark-red, mahogany or, seldom, black and tan.
Among the three varieties of coat, besides the most common colours everybody knows, there are other odd and quaint colours accepted and included in the Standard.
The Standard concerns about three varieties of coat as one-coloured (red, red-yellow or yellow, with or without interspersed black hairs), two-coloured (“black and tan or brown and tan” and wild boar in case of wirehaired) and dappled (with tiger markings or brindle). Usually, the brown and tan Dachshunds are called “chocolate”.
In case of one-coloured “a neat colour is desirable and dark-red has to be considered better than red-yellow or yellow”.
In two-coloured Dachshunds “tan markings can be found over the eyes, on the sides of the jaw and under lip, on the inner edge of the ear, on the breast, inside and behind the legs, on the paws, around the anus and from there to about one-third to one-half of the length of the tail on the underside”. Either a white spot on the breast or a too large marking are “not desirable”.
In dappled Dachshunds “the main colour is always a dark one (black, red or grey). Grey or beige irregular spots are desirable (large spots are not desirable). Neither the light nor the dark colour should predominate. Brindle is a pattern in which dark stripes occur over red or yellow, the main colours of its body”.
Smooth Dachshunds can be “chocolate” (brown and tan) as well as dappled.
Wirehaired Dachshund can be “chocolate” or black and tan. Their one-coloured version (from wheat yellow to dark-red) is called in Germany “dry leaf”. And rarely do they appear even in dappled version.
Even longhaired Dachshunds can be found in the numerous and fascinating varieties of dappled (particularly when matched with its regal coat). Moreover they can appear in their two-coloured “chocolate” version.
Eyes, nose and nails
Eyes, noses and nails colours require further remarks.
In accordance with the Standard, the eyes have to be “almost like the coat, from dark bright red to dark black.
The light blue, yellow and pearly eyes are not desirable, but are acceptable in dappled subjects”.
In one-coloured Dachshunds, “nose and nails are black. Dark red is allowed but not desirable”.
In two-coloured subjects, nose and nails are “black in Dachshunds with black coat and brown in those chocolate”.
In dappled subjects nose and nails “are like in the previous cases”.
Laura Ranza
(in “Mon Ami”, nr. 1, January 2004)
