The celebrated author and essayist E.B.White knew what he was talking about when it came to dogs. “Being the owner of dachshunds, to me a book on dog discipline becomes a volume of inspired humour,” he wrote. “I would rather train a striped zebra to balance an Indian club than induce a dachshund to heed my slightest command.”

He was right, up to a point. You can, in fact, train a dachshund, but only to do what he (or she) feels like doing. In that sense, they can be collaborative, but are more often insurgents. Dachshunds are cussedly independent, relentlessly single-minded, resolutely stubborn and sometimes bloody-mindedly awkward dogs, which makes it rather surprising to learn that the dachshund (in its miniature variety) is now reported to be the most popularly-bred dog in the UK.

According to data compiled by Britain’s biggest online pet retailer, the dachshund has taken over from the French bulldog – top of the charts for the past decade – as the nation’s hottest dog,........

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