“The Longhaired Variety”
Download this page in PDF formatThis one will be a short, sweet one about Longhaired Dachshunds, their coat colors and how we make the coat look as good as we can make it appear. The Standard data will be in bold and my comments about them will be right afterwards in regular print.
Longhaired Dachshund – Coat – The sleek, glistening, often slightly wavy hair is longer under the neck and on forechest, the underside of the body, the ears and behind the legs.
The hair which can be slightly wavy is on the back of the neck, the topline, the neck, the forechest and the underline of the dog. Many of us did do a lot of trimming on the scruff of the neck under the head, the back of the neck, across the withers and taking all the hair off the front of the neck, making the dog look so neat and beautifully groomed. Remember, all of us want the dog to be smooth across the shoulders and have a long neck exposed as very smooth across those withers. As for the head, many of us took a stripping knife and took as much of the head hair off as we could and did that with each showing until we could get no more off as we wanted the head to look as clean and neat as the Smooths did We also took off all the hair under the ears with scissors, thinning shears and stripping knife and kept that area cleaned while we were showing the dog. Then, we trimmed the feet from the underside and overside, trimmed off the back of the paw behind the front pastern and the back of the hock in the rear to put the finishing grooming touches on him.
We always washed the dog the day before the show, wrapped the dog in a towel and kept the dog in a crate overnight. The next morning, we would unwrap the dog from the towel and he was ready to walk in the ring. Also, we have to remember that the hair has to be of good quality and never too full and too curly. That is the way we showed Longhairs for years in the 70s and 80s and most Judges appeared to like them looking as they did and it was little effort to get them in the Ring.
The coat gives the dog an elegant appearance.
This statement sort of leaves me scratching my head, as how can a dog, in full coat, have an elegant appearance, especially when compared to the Smooth whose sleek appearance does make it seem very elegant without all that hair! I guess we will just have to keep our eyes opened and find out when we see it next time in the Ring.
Short hair on the ear is not desirable.
The ears should have nice coat, without being short and naked, and they should look like they belong on a full coated Longhaired Dachshund, not a Smooth or Wirehaired one. Nothing makes the head look less ready for showing than having naked ears right next to the head as it just looks very immature and young.
Too profuse a coat which masks type, equally long hair over the whole body, a curly coat, or a pronounced parting on the back are faults.
The coat can be too profuse and it really does mask that type that we seek in Longhairs as we still want a long neck, long body, low-station, short hocks and a nice tail. The equally long hair or the curly coat and a parting of the coat on the back are also faults in hiding the type we want in the Variety and are things we need to fight against by changing them to how we want the coat to look when ready to show and this bad coat with too-much long, curly hair on them really makes the body stand out and just throw the proportions off.
Tail – Carried gracefully in prolongation of the spine; the hair attains its greatest length here and forms a veritable flag.
The tail is a prolongation of the spine and is carried gracefully (but never gaily) while the dog is moving. There is a flag on the tail formed by the long hair on the bottom of the tail, while it has shorter hair on the top of that tail. As for grooming, the extra hair around the anus is usually trimmed by scissors so that it looks neat and clean when it is being shown. That should pretty well cover having a Longhaired Dachshund trimmed and ready to go and having it look and feel like a winner in the Ring.
Color of Hair – Same as for the smooth Dachshund. Nose and nails – same as for the smooth.
The colors of the coat, the nose and the nails are much the same as for Smooths with most of them being reds and black and tans, some dapples, a very few brindles and Sables and almost no grays and blue and tans. Coat is again possibly slightly wavy, but should look natural and always in place whether standing or moving to show off what we are looking for when we look for a great Longhaired Dachshund.
This look at the Longhaired Dachshund is to get the dog ready to show and to look great in front of the Judge There is little left to do when you have the dog well-groomed, in the proper coat and of the proper color. Many exhibitors like to show off-colored dogs and that, basically, just puts the show schedule further down the road and they are certainly welcome to do that, but most knowledgeable Judges will not really co-operate as we have to judge to the AKC Standard and count what is their against what is being shown. Again, personally, we would not excuse them as these colors are accepted by DCA, but would certainly note what they lack in our placings. Again, I state that the piebalds and other dogs are NOT a DQ and I would judge them and give them the same chances as the other Longhairs in my entry. A DQ has to be noted, IMO, for it to be in effect, but again that is how I look at the piebalds being shown while still giving them the opportunity to be judged .