Dachshunds and Cats: What the Charities Actually Say

A dachshund and cat can share a home. What decides it is not your introduction technique, which is where almost every page on this subject puts the emphasis.

PDSA, the UK veterinary charity, puts it bluntly: “Dachshunds do have a high prey drive and love to chase so we wouldn’t recommend keeping them with smaller pets.” Then it adds the condition that changes everything.

They “may get along OK with a cat they have grown up with,” which isn’t the same claim at all.

That is a statement about timing, not about method. Does that mean your technique is irrelevant? No, but it’s the second variable and not the first one.

Read on for what it means for your household, and for the one place where the dog charities and the cat charities flatly contradict each other.

Two charities, two answers

Search this question and you get a confident yes. Google’s own AI summary says dachshunds and cats “can live together happily, but it takes some careful navigation.”

So where does that confidence come from?

Look at where that answer comes from. Its citations are Facebook, Reddit, Quora, one small blog and a pet adoption site. Not a single veterinary source appears in it.

Two charities do have a published position, and they don’t agree on how optimistic to be.

PDSA would not recommend the pairing, and says you should always supervise a dachshund with other animals.
Dachshund Health UK published a piece treating it as trainable, with a method and a list of commands to teach.

Both are worth your attention, and the second one is a guest article on the charity’s site rather than a clinical position. Neither offers a success rate, so nobody can tell you the odds.

The chase isn’t a fault, it’s the job description

It helps to know what you’re managing here. The AKC breed standard says the dachshund’s “hunting spirit, good nose, loud tongue and distinctive build make him well-suited for below-ground work and for beating the bush.”

That last phrase means flushing an animal out of cover so that it runs. Your cat sprinting down a hallway is not triggering a behavior problem. It is triggering the exact sequence the breed was built around.

The same document adds that scars from honorable wounds are not a fault, “inasmuch as the Dachshund is a hunting dog.” This is a working breed described in working terms.

International Cat Care makes the same point from the other side, naming “a terrier or chasing breed” as the type “more driven by their instinct to chase than some other breeds.” Dachshunds sit squarely in that description. If the chasing has already started, there’s a separate piece on a dog chasing the cat and what helps.

So you aren’t training away a defect. You’re managing a function, and functions don’t disappear.

What decides whether a dachshund and cat get along

Go back to PDSA’s wording, because the qualifier is doing all the work. Whether a dachshund and cat end up sharing a sofa or a standoff turns on four words: a cat they have grown up with.

In practice that sorts households into three very different situations.

Dachshund puppy joining a home with a resident cat. The best odds, because the cat’s part of the furniture before the drive fully develops.
Kitten joining a home with an adult dachshund. Harder, because a small, fast, unfamiliar animal is arriving in established territory.
Adult dachshund meeting an adult cat. Hardest, and it’s the one where “we wouldn’t recommend” applies most directly.

Owners describe the same split, sometimes inside one household:

“My male dachshund loves my cats. The snuggle daily. My female dachshund thinks the cats are 3 steps down on the evolutionary scale.”
– r/Dachshund, December 2025 (90 upvotes)

Same house, same owner, same introduction, and two opposite dogs: that’s the part no method controls.

None of that makes the harder versions impossible. It does mean the honest answer to “can I get a dachshund if I have a cat” depends more on ages than on how carefully you plan the first week.

Where the two charities disagree

Here is the contradiction nobody writing about this seems to mention, and it matters because it changes what you physically set up.

Dachshund Health UK describes the introduction like this: “when introducing a Dachshund to a cat, the Dachshund can be on a leash and the cat in a crate.”

International Cat Care, a cat welfare charity, builds its method on the opposite principle. The cat needs a safe room with all its resources, “multiple safe and elevated perches,” and a physical barrier such as a baby gate, so the animals “can’t make physical contact with each other unless supervised.”

Its line on the lead is a pointed one: “Your dog’s lead is not there to provide restraint, but as a ‘just in case.'”

Put those side by side and ask which animal can walk away. The difference is about who gets to leave. A crated cat can’t, and that is the whole of the objection. Every element of the cat charity’s setup exists so the cat can remove itself the moment it wants to, and can watch from somewhere high while it decides.

If you follow one of them, follow the one whose subject is the animal with fewer options in the room. A dachshund that loses interest can be walked away. A cat that feels cornered has nowhere to put that feeling.

If you are still choosing the cat, the evidence on which one to pick is in the piece on best cat breeds for dogs, and the short version is that breed is not the variable.

The full sequence the shelters use, and how long each stage takes, is in the separate piece on introducing a cat to a dog. This page stays on what changes when the dog is a dachshund.

The 3-3-3 rule isn’t what you think it is

People searching this question keep asking about the 3-3-3 rule for cats and dogs, so it’s worth saying plainly what it is.

The San Francisco SPCA describes it as three stages for a newly adopted animal settling in. The first three days are “about adjusting to new surroundings.” The next three weeks are for “building a routine.” The first three months are “about deepening trust and building confidence.”

Notice what it doesn’t describe: there’s nothing in it about a dog meeting a cat. It is a timeline for one animal arriving in a new home, not a protocol for two animals meeting.

The SPCA also calls it a guideline rather than a rule, and makes no claim that research supports it. It’s useful for setting expectations after an adoption. It isn’t an introduction plan.

If you already have both

So what actually helps once a dachshund and cat are already in the house together? The charities converge on a short list.

Dachshund Health UK names four commands worth having: “sit,” “stay,” “come” and “leave it.” Only one of those is really about the cat. “Leave it” is the interrupt, and it’s got to work when your dog is already switched on, not just in the kitchen with a treat in your hand. If you’re starting from scratch, the basics of training a dachshund come first.

Build the cat’s escape architecture before you need it. Shelves, a cat tree, a gap at the top of the stairs, a room behind a baby gate with food and a litter tray. The point is choice, and it has to be available at speed.

And take the supervision line literally. PDSA says you should always supervise your dachshund with other animals, with no expiry date on that advice. Dogs that’ve been fine for years are still dogs that were bred to chase things into holes. A hard sprint after a cat is also a jolt through a long back, which is one more reason to interrupt it early; the rest of the breed’s health problems are covered separately.

My Pretzel spent his first year barking at everything that moved and working out how to get over the back fence. That drive doesn’t vanish because the house gets quiet. It gets managed, and the management is what you’re signing up for. The same instinct shows up as noise, which is its own project: here’s how to work on the barking.

Dachshunds and cats: what owners ask

Do dachshunds do okay with cats?

Some do. For a dachshund and cat the strongest predictor is whether they grew up together. PDSA would not recommend the pairing in general, while saying a dachshund may get along fine with a cat it was raised alongside. Neither charity publishes a success rate.

Can I get a dachshund if I already have a cat?

You can, and you should go in knowing that a veterinary charity advises against it for households with smaller pets. A dachshund puppy joining a confident resident cat is the version with the best odds. An adult dachshund meeting an adult cat is the version PDSA’s warning fits most closely.

What is the 3-3-3 rule with cats?

It’s an adjustment timeline for a newly adopted animal: three days to settle, three weeks to build a routine, three months to build trust. The San Francisco SPCA calls it a guideline. It says nothing about introducing a dog to a cat, so it won’t help you plan one.

Are miniature dachshunds better with cats?

Size is the wrong variable here. Miniatures aren’t a separate breed in the AKC standard, just a class division for dogs 11 pounds and under at 12 months. The hunting drive is the same drive, attached to a smaller dog. If anything, a cat outweighs many miniatures, which changes the physics but not the chase.

What dog is the most friendly with cats?

Breed lists exist for this, and they’re editorial opinion, not data. What the sources here support is narrower and more useful: chasing breeds carry more risk, and shared upbringing matters more than breed reputation.

How long does it take?

None of the three charities gives a timescale, which is itself an answer. International Cat Care says only that the introduction “should be gradual.” Anyone quoting you a number of days is quoting themselves.