The truth about isabella doxies?

I have seen well-bred dilute dachsunds - all mini smooths- but they're few and far between. I think I've seen ONE in 7 years of showing!

Definately agree with that site about the pattern mixing, though and the cashing in on 'rare' colors by puppy mills and BYBs. I went to a dachshund event two weeks ago and the vast, vast majority of the dogs came from BYBs or puppy mills. I saw 5 sound, typey dogs all day- coincidentally (not!) all five of them were pet quality dogs from show breeders. None had any back or joint problems, including the 13 year old b/t WH!

Look at the dogs on the Duchwood site. Long backs, yes, but LEVEL toplines. No roached backs, no bug eyes, but beautiful ssweet faces and sound bodies and temperament.  Dachshunds are one of the breeds- honestly, along with most of the toys- that have been hurt the worst by their popularity, and there's a world of difference between a wellbred dachsie and a BYB or mill dog.  

Wow.  Those are some gorgeous Dachshunds.  And check this out:

Duchwood Kennels has been in existence for over 25 years [snip].  We are also involved in field trials, agility, and earth dog tests with titles in all of these venues. Our emphasis is on sound temperament and movement.   [my emphasis] Most of our pet quality puppies are placed with families who have young children.

I really, really enjoy seeing evidence of breeders dedicated to a well-rounded pet animal.  Even if it's actually hot dog shaped. 

I agree that the quality of the breeder has a lot to do with the health of the dogs. It is sad how smaller dogs often are so inbred and bred to be teeny tiny that often times health and other issues arise.

 Dutchwood does seem to have some nice doxies and are very involved in their dogs. Breeders like that are few and far between.

We've had four doxies over the years and two of the four were from excellant breeders--never a problem with either of them.Our second one was from the humane society and he ended up having seizures quite often and was always kind of thin,but he was the sweetest one,so gentle.  I've never seen such beautiful dogs till you mentioned the above breeder

They are well worth the money  and I believe it was you who had heard of Fyrehouse Dalmatians. I remember talking to the woman about her dogs and couldn't believe the price.  Now, having a dal with allergies,I can see why it's worth it, but there are so many in rescues,you feel bad for them and that is why we got ours thru a rescue.  And I wouldn't give her up for any amount of money.

I have never had a problem with my doxies either, but I guess it is very common for them to have skin and coat problems if they are one of the dillute colors.

I am very weary of adopting a dog from the humane society. For one, most people at local humane societies and the aspca don't know much about the animals they are caring for. I adopted a pomeranian mix from the humane society last year after being told he had gone through the normal tests for tempermant etc. and that he was such a sweet dog but had unfortunately been abandoned by his previous owner. Well, I brought him home and almost immediatley starting experiencing problems. Not only was he not housebroken like they had mentioned, but he was extremely aggressive toward my fiancee. He also had severe food agression and almost took off my brother's finger once while he was trying to fill his water dish! By no means do I expect any dog, regardless of where they came from to be perfect, but I do expect these shelters and rescue groups to be honest with people when they attempt to adopt dogs out. Perhaps they simply weren't aware of all these issues, or he really had not been evaluated properly. Either way, after five months of bringing him to trainers, vets, dog behaviorists, we had to give him back to the shelter. They advised me that they would try to work on his behavior, but if they deemed him unfit for adoption they would send him to a pomeranian rescue so he wouldn't have to be put down. Needless to say I cried for days, feeling like I had failed him. So, as you can understand I am very cautious from adopting any dog from a shelter.

 I've heard stories about shelter dogs like that so much. It's just so hard to tell with them. When I was a kid, my mother adopted a really sweet whippet cross from the shelter. For 2 years, she was great, then she quite suddenly started attacking my corgi. The corgi ended up at the vets twice getting patched up, and nearly lost an eye. The shelter dog seemed intent on finishing my corgi off, and I was off at uni at the time, so I couldn't help. My mother got a behaviourist in, but ended up putting the shelter dog to sleep. It was so heart-breaking that she's vowed never to get a shelter dog again, and I feel the same. That whippet cross was just the sweetest thing and I loved her to bits. It was very, very hard to deal with what had happened and we've both lost our faith in our abilities to manage and retrain a dog we don't know the history of. I would rather sit by and watch the entire shelter PTS than fall in love with a dog and have her turn like that again. You don't get over things like that. It's always a fear once it's happened. Even in retrospect I can't see any warning signs we should have picked up. We just couldn't have known.