Roll up, roll up… New sausage dog museum opens in Germany

BAVARIA has just opened the kind of museum millions of us have been waiting for… the world’s first sausage dog museum!

If you think this seems an odd choice, you may change your opinion as you learn more about this part of Germany, and the new Dackelmuseum in the city of Passau will teach you all you need to know, with over 4,500 exhibits on show.

In the Middle Ages, parts of Germany had big problems with badgers and foxes killing hens and ducks. They needed an animal that was fast and smart, and the right shape to get into their burrows and flush them out where they could be dealt with.

The dachshund fitted the bill in all respects, and breeding the little hunting dogs became a widespread pursuit in Bavaria and elsewhere.

Created by a couple of local florists, the museum is believed to hold the world’s largest selection of dachshund-related items.

Well, surely there can’t be too many other dachshund museums out there.

Stamps, prints, photos, porcelain dachshunds and just about anything else sausage dog-related that you can imagine will all be there to see.

But who will want to come and see it?

According to the locals of Passau, the sausage dog is one of the most popular breeds of dogs, not just in Germany but across the world, and they expect large visitor numbers all year round.

Albert Einstein and Spock star Leonard Nimoy thought it was entirely logical to have a dachshund as their pet pooch, while 1972’s Munich Olympics even had a sausage dog, Waldi, as its mascot.

If you recall the Yorkshire Dachshund Group’s latest annual walk at Leeds’ Roundhay Park in December, when almost 300 of these delightful little creatures were on show, you’ll be well aware of just how popular they are.

There will be just two real, live dachshunds on display at the museum, Seppi and Moni, who belong to the founder and curators, Jozef Kublbeck and Oliver Storz.

They reckon that we all need to see the world through a dachshund’s eyes now and again, and that would be interesting.

After all, it would mean the pavement was much closer to our chins and we really had to hold our stomachs in.