Dachshunds were originally bred in Germany 3-400 years ago as specialised hunting dogs, primarily used to hunt and flush badgers from their sett. The word Dachshund comes from the German 'dachs' (meaning badger) and 'hund' (meaning hound). Dachshunds come in two sizes, standard and miniature. The original hunting dogs were the larger standard size weighing around 14kg, miniature dachshunds were carefully selected from standard litters and bred together to create the smaller