The dachshund: bold, curious, and compact - a dog-and-a-half full of character

The dachshund: bold, curious, and compact - a dog-and-a-half full of character - Dachshunds are everywhere.

Walk down any fashionable street today and you will be tripping over the little sausages. The 12th most popular dog breed in the US, they are the dog du jour: compact enough for city living, yet feisty enough for a long country walk; cute but clever and independent, and with universal appeal, they are the stars of the sidewalk and the screen - Django the Gent from New York and Princess Lilo from California have 170,000 instagram followers between them.

Caroline Donald shares her experience of life with a dachshund: what to look for and what to avoid, how to train and how to look after them. Also included are reports from dachsy homes: from Crusoe, the 11 year-old celebrity dachshund from Ottawa (801K followers on Instagram), River the Mini Dachshund on the Gold Coast in Australia, to the Great Dixter Dachshunds; Greta the puppy belonging to actor Dominic West and his family; and Willow, the elegant long-haired English cream belonging to Claire Waight Keller, artistic director of Givenchy and designer of Meghan's wedding dress.

There are also stories of artists' dachshunds, including Picasso's Lump, Andy Warhol's Archie and Amos and David Hockney's Stanley and Boodgie; as well as royal dachshunds. New to the breed or old hand, there's more than a titbit or two to get your teeth into.