Short Haired Dachshund: The Smooth Coat, Puppy Tells and Back Health

A short haired dachshund is the smooth variety, one of the breed’s three coats alongside longhaired and wirehaired, and you’ll find it in both standard and miniature sizes.

The Dachshund Club of America’s official breed standard asks for a coat that’s “short, smooth and shining,” neither too long nor too thick.

It’s also the coat you’ll meet most often. In the UK’s Royal Kennel Club registrations for 2025, miniature smooths alone made up 8,908 of 14,658 dachshunds, about 61%. Add the standard smooths and it’s about 63%.

Two things about smooths are worth knowing before you fall for one. A smooth-looking puppy isn’t always a smooth. And in the one large survey that split the breed by variety, smooth standards had the highest rate of disc disease.

What a smooth coat should look like

The standard keeps the smooth coat simple. The hair lies short, close and glossy, and the ears shouldn’t feel leathery when you run them through your fingers. You won’t see feathering on the ears, chest or legs.

The tail is where you might get confused. The DCA wants it “gradually tapered to a point” and well haired, and it says long sleek bristles on the underside are “a patch of strong-growing hair, not a fault.”

A brush tail, bushy all the way round, is a fault.

Color doesn’t depend on the coat. Your smooth can be red or cream, black or chocolate with tan, wild boar, blue or Isabella, or carry a pattern such as dapple. The dachshund colors page goes through each one.

Smooth or longhaired puppy? Where to look

Young puppies don’t make this easy, and you’re far from the only one asking. Owners in r/Dachshund post photos of puppies from 4 to 18 weeks old with exactly this question.

A July 2026 post about a 10-week-old miniature that looked “medium haired” drew more than 900 upvotes.

Start with where long hair is supposed to grow. The DCA standard says a longhair’s coat is longer “under the neck and on forechest, the underside of the body, the ears and behind the legs.”

The tail grows the longest hair of all and forms a flag.

So look at those spots on your puppy:

• Ears. Fringes or wisps along the ear edges point to a longhair. “Ears are the tell on young pups,” one owner replied in an August 2026 discussion about a puppy of 16 to 18 weeks.
• Behind the front legs. Looking at a 4-week-old pup in September 2026, another owner leaned longhair because “those hairs near the elbow look a bit wispy for a short hair.”
• Chest and belly. If you see longer hair under the neck and along the underside, you’re likely looking at a longhair.
• Tail. A flag of long hair means longhair. A strip of longer, sleek bristles under an otherwise tapered tail is allowed on a smooth, so don’t let that alone sway you.

What if your puppy seems in between? Coat length in dachshunds runs on a single gene with a long and a short version.

When a 2009 study genotyped 96 dachshunds of all three coats, the longhairs and the rest fell into two clean groups, with no in-between. One owner passed on what their vet had told them:

“From what I heard from my vet…. There’s no such thing as medium coat. My long hair had short hair for months.”
– r/Dachshund, July 2026

So give it time. Someone else in that discussion said longhairs don’t get their full coat until around 2 or 3 years old. A smooth stays short. One owner’s two-year-old smooth was “still puppy soft,” but its length was what you’d expect of a shorthair.

Parents don’t settle it either. The long version is recessive, so two smooth parents that each carry one copy can have a longhaired puppy. Each puppy from that pairing has about a one-in-four chance.

In a November 2023 r/Dachshund discussion, an owner said their smooth female, bred to another smooth, “had 5 smooths and one long hair.”

A smooth crossed with a longhair can go either way too. Another owner described a litter of eight from that pairing with both smooth and long puppies, and “no in between coat.”

If the coat matters to you, ask your breeder whether either parent has thrown a longhaired puppy before. Then look at the ears and the backs of the front legs yourself. The long haired dachshund page explains the gene in more detail.

Smooths and back trouble

Disc disease (IVDD) is the health problem dachshunds are known for, and if you own a smooth, the numbers aren’t kind.

The DachsLife 2015 survey of 2,031 UK dachshunds, published by Packer and colleagues in 2016, asked owners whether a vet had diagnosed their dog with it.

Smooth standards had the highest rate, 24.4%, or 49 of 201 dogs. Smooth miniatures came in at 17.1%, or 127 of 744, above the survey’s overall 15.7%.

Wirehaired standards had the lowest rate at 7.1%. By the authors’ figures, a smooth standard had about 4.2 times their odds of disc disease.

Smooths in the survey were also diagnosed fairly young. The median age at diagnosis was 6.0 years for smooth standards and 5.0 years for smooth miniatures.

Keep the limits in mind. These are owner reports from one UK survey, and they describe groups, not your own dog. They don’t prove the coat itself does any harm, either.

I’ve watched Bruno go through disc surgery and a long recovery, so I don’t treat those percentages as abstract. If you live with a smooth, learn the early signs now, before you need them. The IVDD in dachshunds page covers the stages and the choice between surgery and crate rest.

Living with a short coat

A short coat doesn’t mean you’ll have a dog that won’t shed. Smooth owners disagree about how much hair they find.

In a December 2023 r/Dachshund discussion, one said their smooth drops “very little hair.” Another said their boy sheds a lot and wondered if they just notice it more “because he’s cream colored.”

Grooming is light, though. A third owner in that discussion said the smooth coat seems to repel dirt and needs only a little cleaning after a long walk. The do dachshunds shed page compares the care each coat needs.

Cold is the trade-off. The American Veterinary Medical Association says short-haired pets feel the cold faster, and suggests a sweater or dog coat if your dog has a short coat or seems bothered by cold weather.

Your smooth has short legs as well, so its belly meets the cold ground first. The dachshund sweater page shows you how to measure for one that covers it.

Will a smooth have a different personality from a longhair? You’ll hear that claim, but I couldn’t find a study that tested it.

One owner who has had nine dachshunds over 35 years put it bluntly in a November 2025 discussion: “long v short hair means nothing.” If you’re choosing between coats, the types of dachshunds page sets them side by side with the sizes.

Short haired dachshund questions

Is a short haired dachshund the same as a smooth dachshund?

Yes. “Smooth” is the breed standard’s name for the short coat, and “short haired” is the everyday name for the same dog. Standards and miniatures both come in it.

Is there a miniature short haired dachshund?

Yes, and in the UK it’s the most registered dachshund of all, about 61% in 2025. If you’re in the US, the DCA counts a dachshund as a miniature at 11 pounds and under at 12 months of age and older, whatever the coat.

How often should you bathe a short haired dachshund?

There’s no set number. The AKC calls the smooth coat somewhat “wash and wear,” needing little beyond a wipe with a towel or a hound glove. So save full baths for when your dog has rolled in something or starts to smell.

Can two short haired dachshunds have a long haired puppy?

Yes, if both parents carry the recessive long-hair gene. Each puppy from that pairing has about a one-in-four chance of a long coat. If only one parent carries it, or neither does, the puppies will all be short-coated.