Panic in Germany: Is the Trusty Dachshund Dying Out?

Like a bad penny, this news story keeps turning up. The origin seems to be from a story put together by Spiegel in March of this year. It showed up later in several other news sources. A funny quote from timesonline.co.uk: The newspaper Söddeutsche Zeitung pointed out recently that Germany’s high society was turning its back on the floppy-eared mutts. “With a crooked-legged creature like that one has no chance of making it into the style pages of glossy magazines,“ it wrote. “At best one will get into a hound and hunting magazine.”
Reuters and CNN have picked up the story now. Here's an excerpt from Reuters: Germans are turning their backs on dachshunds, the short-legged, long-bodied "sausage dogs" which are as much a national emblem as beer and lederhosen.
The German Dog Association (VDH) says only 7,158 dachsund, or "dackel", puppies were born in the country last year and the birth rate has dropped by about 35 percent in the last decade.
"Dackels are in decline because German owners have a far wider range of breeds to choose from than they did 20 years ago," said Birgit Buttner of the VDH.
Golden retrievers, Labradors and Jack Russell terriers, relative newcomers in Germany, are the main threat to the beloved dachshund, she said.
However, even if dachshunds are in decline in Germany, they are booming in Japan where last year 20,000 puppies were bred. Read the rest.