Is a girl or a boy dachshund better?

Updated 8 October 2026 · 6 min read · Wiener Club

For temperament, pick the puppy, not the sex. Across the research, differences between individual dachshunds are far bigger than differences between the sexes, and the few measurable effects are small.

There is one dachshund-specific exception worth knowing, and it goes against the usual advice: in the best-known study of trainability across eleven breeds, male dachshunds scored *more* trainable than females. Dachshunds were one of only two breeds where sex mattered at all.

Where sex genuinely changes something is health, and specifically neutering. Spayed female dachshunds showed a clearly higher risk of disc herniation than intact females; in males the same effect was smaller and not statistically significant. If you take one thing from this page, take that.

The trainability finding

Serpell and Hsu surveyed the owners of 1,563 dogs from eleven breeds. Breed differences in trainability were large and obvious. Sex differences, across the whole sample, were not there at all — with two exceptions, and one of them was the dachshund: male dachshunds and male West Highland Whites were rated significantly more trainable than the females of their breed.

The authors’ own conclusion is the useful part: do not generalise about sex differences from one breed to another. Which also means do not read too much into one result from one owner survey. But if you have been told that bitches are easier to train, that advice was not written about this breed.

What owners report, and what it is worth

"Males are more affectionate, females more independent." This is the common claim and the evidence for it is thin. Larger surveys find small differences in excitability and attachment, not in affection.
"Females are calmer." Not supported in dachshunds. Calm in this breed tracks with age, exercise, sleep and whether anyone has taught an off-switch — see the article on when dachshunds settle down.
Marking and roaming are real male behaviours, hormone-driven, and mostly a question of management and age.
Seasons in an intact female come roughly twice a year, last two to three weeks, and mean no dog parks and some laundry.
Two of the same sex together is the one pattern experienced owners agree on: two bitches, or two males, in the same house can be harder than a mixed pair. Not a rule, but worth knowing before you add a second dog.

The part that actually matters: neutering and the back

Dachshunds herniate discs more than any other breed, and one owner survey of 1,964 dachshunds — Dachslife 2015 — looked at whether neutering was part of the picture.

It was, for females. Neutered females had a risk ratio of 1.81 for disc herniation compared with intact females (95% confidence interval 1.28 to 2.54), so meaningfully and reliably higher. For males the figure was 1.38, and the confidence interval crossed 1 — which means the study could not rule out chance.

And for both sexes, dogs neutered *before* twelve months of age were at significantly higher risk than dogs neutered after. That is the single most practical number on this page.

This is an owner-reported, retrospective study. It shows an association, not proof of cause.
It does not say "never neuter". It says the timing is worth a real conversation with your vet, and that early is the thing to avoid.
If you have a female dachshund and your vet suggests spaying at six months, this study is a fair thing to bring up and ask about.

So how do you actually choose?

Meet the litter and watch the individuals. The puppy who recovers quickly from a surprise is a better bet than any sex.
Ask the breeder about the mother’s temperament and the back history on both sides. That tells you far more than the puppy’s sex.
If you already have a dog, consider the opposite sex for the second one.
Decide what you want to live with day to day — marking, or seasons — and pick the one you would rather manage.

Keep reading

Sources

This page also answers

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