Meet Baxter – the dog that shouldn’t be.
Listen up, everyone. I want to talk to you about something serious that makes me even angrier than having other dogs anywhere near where food might be. After 10 years of running this rescue, I’ve grown a thick skin to unfortunate circumstances and all that emotional stuff. I can’t cry for all you rescues because it would cut into the time that I have to cry for food.
Double dapples though, they break my heart. What’s a double dapple? Well, I’m a dapple and you can tell from my handsome silver dapple pattern. Dapple is just that, a pattern. My white areas are somewhat of a a genetic defect where I’m missing pigment. A little dappling in the eye and you get those neat blue patches. Holly and Duchess are also dapples.
I’m sensitive about this because my half-brother Oscar was a double dapple and he died when he was 3 from an autoimmune disorder that shouldn’t have happened, and I had a sister, Gabby (yes, another sister) who was the most messed up double dapple ever. She was barely a dog so sometimes I even forget about her.
Double dappling happens when a dapple is bred to a dapple. So let me oversimplify so the longhairs can follow me. A nice black and tan first gets some dappling from mom, and when that’s done he then gets some dappling from dad. Double dapple – get it? So you take two dogs with the defect and breed them together and you get the potential for some real problems. Double dapples can be born deaf, with no or malformed eyes, with skin problems, with neurological problems … or they can be just fine. Why take the risk when dachshunds are already so stunning? Well, my guess is that it’s because you get an interesting white and dappled dog and I don’t have to spell out what happens when you have something to offer that is “one of a kind”, do I?
Now sometimes a dog can be dappled and not have much dappling to show and a litter of double dapples happens by accident. It can be really hard to see on the reds. One little spot of dappling makes you a dapple carrier even if it’s between your toes. This is why I decided not to be a stud and to leave the breeding to the professionals.
So meet Baxter, our latest rescue buddy. At 8 months old he is deaf, has vision problems, and he has epilepsy. He also has a neurological problem that has cause one side of his body to be weaker than the other so sometimes he falls over. This doesn’t affect his awesome personality, but it makes me sad that he’ll have to live his life on medication and will never hear a doorbell or be able to spot a treat in his path.
Baxter has had his first vet visit and will be neutered soon. You’ll hear more from him soon and you’ll have to help us find a special home for him. He’ll need another dog to follow, and an owner who will learn hand signals and who is ok with monitoring his seizures and medication. No kids because he can be mouthy since he can’t hear your feedback when he play-nips too hard. He’s just a puppy, remember.
Yes, he’s cute but his problems are not. If you like white on your dachshund, consider a piebald. All the cute, none of the problems.
