This class of Dachshund serves as a sort of general utility dog. If a hare or a rabbit be wounded by a shot, the dog will find or retrieve it; a varmint be found in a trap, it will kill it; if there be fur or feather to be found and driven from covert, the dog is trained and is quite equal to the task.

These are all services such as one can command from one or other of our own breeds of dogs employed for sport; but then a single properly trained Dachshund will perform them all, whilst the little hounds may also be trained to work more associated with their name, and which I shall describe in detail later on.

It has been made clear so far that the Dachshund is capable of work in wood, covert, or field, of no mean order, and it is now necessary to see how these faculties for work can be developed. To this end we must take some stock of the breed as we now possess it. Those who are responsible for the type of Dachshund have frequently disputed between what may be termed Hound and Terrier type, and in this respect we find one of the causes of the fallacy which the name Dachshund begets influencing judgment in the wrong direction. The Dachshund never was a Terrier in the sense that we understand it of a dog for going to ground. True, well-trained ones - trained, that is, for this particular work - will go to ground and tackle fox or badger in its earth ; but the Dachshund, as a working dog, is and must be regarded in the light of a diminutive hound, working slowly, but steadily, by scent mostly, and driving game or vermin to the gun.

There are few dogs more sure or persistent upon a cold trail or scent; they will follow and find wounded fur and feather where smarter breeds, such as a Spaniel or a Terrier, will over-run the quarry and remain at fault; they will also, when worked in company, follow, worry, and bring to gun or to bay far superior quarry to dogs of their own weight and size of Terrier breed.

It will therefore be seen that to promote and thoroughly bring out the working capabilities of the Dachshund, it is, to say the least, unwise to attempt to enter them upon the same lines as one would commence the education of young Terriers. It is precisely for this reason that so many failures to make good working Dachshunds have resulted.

For a portion of its work a Dachshund requires to be entered upon the same lines as the small Beagles - Beagles, that is, of about 14 in., not the oversized ones, neither Beagle, Harrier, nor Hound, of 17in. to even 19 in., whose size and speed are too great for one style of work and insufficient for the other. Coupled with this form of work, the Dachshund requires entering also to that portion of a sporting Terrier's work that embraces the search by scent for fur or vermin, the driving of them to gun, net, or earth, but not the actual going to earth. When Dachshunds are required to go to earth after fox or badger, whether to tackle the quarry and hold it at bay till it is dug out, or to drive it from its burrow, a specific form of training is required - upon the same lines as the low-legged Scottish Terriers are entered for work amongst the cairns and rocky grounds of our northern province where foxes are shot and caught, but not hunted with hounds.

Slow seek, sure find, is the maxim that must guide the hand that seeks to train Dachshunds to the work of which they are capable and at which they are adepts. They cannot at their best replace any of our Terrier breeds at the work at which they in their turn axe facile princeps, but they can be brought to such a state of serviceable training in the directions which have been mentioned as will freely prove their utility and value as an addition to our list of sporting dogs. The great point is that they must receive a special course of training suited to their peculiarities of form and nature and with a due appreciation of their possible powers. Of course, the general scheme of game-preservation and woodcraft in these islands is not the same as in the far larger and wilder lands of the countries where the Dachshund is chiefly valued and used, whilst at the same time the quarry upon which they can be worked is of far more limited character and variety. At the same time, the opportunities for employing them when properly trained are many and varied, as will be seen from the experiences of their working gained in those Continental districts where they are chiefly valued, and which will be described.

To properly appreciate what well-trained Dachshunds are capable of, it is necessary to have witnessed them at work, and shared in the sport in which their services are brought to bear. Given a concise insight into the manner in which they are employed abroad - admittedly under somewhat different circumstances from those obtaining at home - the outcome of the training to which they are submitted will serve as a guide to the possibilities of their use in our own lands.

For the most part the majority of the forests and woodlands of Germany harbour many more hares than do any of our British woods and coverts; and in districts where the Dachshund is a plentiful feature of the kennels, it is freely employed for the purpose of beating out the hares for the individual gunner, or for general beats, where several sportsmen are concerned. These woodland hares do not strike straight away when started from their forms, but display very much the same tactics as rabbits, dodging here and there amongst the undergrowth where such exists, and confining their course to lesser and more circling limits where the woods are clear and the view of the quarry is more extended.

Under these conditions the work of the Dachshund upon hares resembles very much that of a steady, slow Spaniel - less bustling and headstrong, and running more by scent than sight when once the quarry is sighted. Along drives and paths Dachshunds learn to work the ground on either side, never going deep into cover, but driving the hares to the open ground, where opportunity for shooting is greater. Many Dachshunds trained to this work will follow and retrieve a wounded hare - wounded heavily, that is, for it stands to reason that a Dachshund's pace would not be equal to running down one only slightly touched - within reasonable limits of time. Still, for all that, these dogs, when keen and thoroughly trained, are quite capable of such work, and many instances of their powers in this direction have come under my personal notice.