A Chiweenie is a Chihuahua crossed with a Dachshund. It is one of the most searched dogs in the Dachshund world and one of the worst served — most pages describing it are written to sell puppies, which means the health section is the shortest one. We breed purebred Dachshunds, not Chiweenies, so we have nothing to sell you here. What follows is the version we would want a friend to read.
What a Chiweenie actually is
A first-generation Chiweenie has one Chihuahua parent and one Dachshund parent. It is a cross, not a breed. No major kennel club recognises it, and the “registries” that issue Chiweenie papers are designer-dog listings that record parentage without setting a standard or requiring health testing. A certificate from one tells you nothing about the dog’s soundness.
That is not an argument against owning one. It is an argument for judging the individual puppy and its two parents rather than the label, because with no standard behind it, a Chiweenie is whatever those two particular dogs produced.
You will also see the cross called a Chiweenie mix, a doxie Chihuahua, a Chihuahua sausage dog, a Mexican hot dog, or any of the misspellings people reach for — dotson, datsun, doxin. Same dog.
What does a Chiweenie look like?
Less predictable than most buyers expect. A first cross does not blend its parents evenly; each puppy in a litter draws its own hand, so littermates can look quite different from one another.
The common outcome is a dog with the Chihuahua’s head shape — domed skull, large upright or semi-upright ears, big round eyes — on a body that is longer than a Chihuahua’s and lower to the ground, but not as extreme as a Dachshund’s. Muzzle length varies a lot. Some get the Dachshund’s longer face, some the Chihuahua’s short one.
The trait that matters most is the one people notice least: how long the back is and how short the legs are. That determines the dog’s health risk for its whole life, and it is visible in the puppy by about ten weeks. More on it below.
How big is a full grown Chihuahua Dachshund mix?
Most land between 5 and 12 lb and stand 8 to 12 inches at the shoulder, with females usually at the lighter end. A cross out of a miniature Dachshund sits lower in that range; one out of a standard Dachshund can reach 15 lb or more.
| Weight | Height | Lifespan | |
| Chihuahua | 2–6 lb | 6–9 in | 14–16 yrs |
| Chiweenie | 5–12 lb | 8–12 in | 12–16 yrs |
| Miniature Dachshund | up to 11 lb | 5–7 in | 12–16 yrs |
| Standard Dachshund | 16–32 lb | 8–9 in | 12–16 yrs |
Note that a Chiweenie is often taller than a miniature Dachshund while weighing about the same — the Chihuahua contributes leg length the Dachshund does not have. Anyone selling you a “teacup Chiweenie” is using a word that means nothing in either parent breed. The same applies to teacup Dachshunds.
Coat types: smooth, long-haired and dapple Chiweenies
Coat follows the parents. A smooth Dachshund crossed with a smooth-coat Chihuahua gives a short, close coat that needs almost nothing. A long-haired Dachshund or a long-coat Chihuahua in the mix gives a longer, softer coat with feathering on the ears, chest and tail — the look most people mean by a long haired Chihuahua Dachshund mix. Both shed moderately; neither is hypoallergenic, and no Chiweenie is.
Colour is wide open: black and tan, cream, fawn, chocolate, brindle, blue, and combinations that appear in neither parent cleanly. A dapple Chiweenie is possible only if the Dachshund parent is a dapple, since that is the merle gene and it comes from that side. If you are offered one, the double-dapple warning applies exactly as it does in purebreds — ask whether either parent is a dapple, because two merle parents can produce a puppy with deafness or eye defects regardless of what else is in the cross. The dapple explainer covers this properly.
Temperament: what you are actually signing up for
Both parent breeds are bold, loyal, opinionated small dogs, and the cross usually is too. Expect a dog that bonds hard to one or two people, watches the door, and tells you about everything that moves outside it. Chiweenies are typically affectionate to the point of being clingy with their person and reserved or sharp with strangers.
Two things catch owners out. The first is noise: both parents are vocal, so barking is a default setting and needs managing from week one rather than at month six. The second is stubbornness. The Dachshund side was bred to work underground alone and make its own decisions; the Chihuahua side is not notably biddable either. Neither is stupid — they simply need a reason. Short sessions, food rewards and consistency work; repetition and correction do not. The Dachshund training guide applies almost unchanged, and house-training takes the same patience, often more, because small bladders and cold-weather reluctance compound.
On children: a Chiweenie is not a natural fit for a house with toddlers. It is small enough to be hurt by ordinary rough handling and quite willing to defend itself when it is. With school-age children who have been taught how to handle a small dog, it is usually fine.
Health: the part most Chiweenie pages get wrong
The claim you will hear is that crossbreeding gives “hybrid vigour” and a healthier dog. For this particular cross, that is largely false, and it is the single most important thing on this page.
A Chiweenie does not average its parents’ health risks. It inherits from both risk pools:
- From the Dachshund side — disc disease. The long back and short legs come from a gene variant (an FGF4 retrogene) that a puppy can inherit from a single Dachshund parent. If it does, that puppy has the same cartilage problem purebred Dachshunds have and the same risk of intervertebral disc disease. Crossing does not dilute it. This is why body shape matters more than any other feature: a long-backed, short-legged Chiweenie needs the full Dachshund regime — no stair-climbing, no sofa jumping, weight kept lean, a ramp where it matters. The IVDD page explains what that looks like in practice.
- From the Chihuahua side — patellar luxation (slipping kneecaps), dental crowding and early tooth loss in a small jaw, tracheal collapse, an open fontanelle (molera) that sometimes does not close, and low blood sugar in very small puppies.
So the honest summary is: a Chiweenie can be a robust dog that lives 14 or more years, and many are. But it is not a way to get a Dachshund’s shape without a Dachshund’s spine, and no breeder can promise otherwise. Ask to see the parents walk.
Grooming and exercise
Grooming is easy either way — a weekly brush for a smooth coat, two or three for a long one, plus the dental care both parent breeds need badly. Brush the teeth; small jaws lose teeth early and it is the most common avoidable problem in this cross.
Exercise is modest: two short walks and some play, roughly 30 minutes a day, more if the dog is built long and needs the core strength. Avoid jumping down from furniture whatever the body shape.
What a Chiweenie puppy costs
Typically $300 to $1,200, occasionally more where a seller is marketing a colour. There is no breed club setting expectations, so price tells you very little about quality here — a $900 Chiweenie is not necessarily better bred than a $400 one. What tells you something is whether the seller can show you both parents, name their health history, and answer the body-shape question without deflecting.
Be alert for the standard puppy-sale problems, which hit designer crosses harder than purebreds because there is no registry paper trail to check. Our guide on spotting a puppy scam covers the patterns, and the breeder questions list works for a Chiweenie breeder with almost no changes.
We don’t breed Chiweenies — what we’d suggest instead
If the appeal is the size, a miniature Dachshund lands in the same weight class at up to 11 lb, and you get something a cross cannot offer: known parentage on both sides, a breed standard to measure the dog against, and a breeder who can tell you what the parents’ backs and eyes are like because they have the same lines in front of them every day.
If the appeal is the temperament — small, devoted, bold, portable — a mini Dachshund gives you most of that, with the Chihuahua’s wariness dialled down.
If you specifically want the Chihuahua’s leggier build and longer life expectancy, then a Chiweenie may genuinely be the better dog for you, and we would rather say so than talk you out of it. Take the health section above to whoever you buy from.
Our current litters are on the available puppies page at $1,000 each, and the miniature Dachshund puppies page lists the smaller ones with both parents’ weights shown. For how this cross compares with the others, see Dachshund mixes: what each cross actually inherits.
