Dachshund colour starts from two pigments: eumelanin (black or, when modified, chocolate/brown) and phaeomelanin (red/yellow). Almost every dachshund colour is a combination of how much of each pigment is made and where.
The two most common looks are solid red — phaeomelanin over the whole coat, ranging from deep mahogany to pale golden — and black and tan, where a black body carries tan points above the eyes, on the muzzle, chest, legs and under the tail.
The brown and dilute switches
A recessive gene turns black pigment to chocolate, giving chocolate-and-tan (and, on a red dog, a subtle warm cast with a brown nose and lighter eyes). A separate dilution gene lightens black to blue-grey and chocolate to Isabella (fawn).
Blue and Isabella dachshunds are recognised in some registries but are widely discouraged because the dilution gene is linked to Colour Dilution Alopecia — thinning, brittle coat and flaky skin that often appears in the first two years.
Cream, wild boar and wheaten
Cream is a pale phaeomelanin coat. "English cream", from specific longhair lines carrying the true recessive shaded cream, holds its pale colour for life; other creams often carry more red.
Wild boar — a banded agouti mix of black and red that reads as grizzled brown — is the classic wirehair colour, echoing the coat of the boar the breed once hunted. Wheaten, a pale straw shade, appears mainly in wirehairs.
