Dana & Denise Gehring are the breeders behind Grand River Dachshunds located in South Dakota (& California). The goal we set and which I believe is still the most important, is to produce healthy puppies that make a well-rounded character in an adult dog. Sometimes the most ordinary things can be made extraordinary simply by doing them with a Dachshund.
Dana lives in southern South Dakota with Dax, Diego, & Tux. Denise lives in southern California with Bentley, Valentina, & Merci.
- Explain a little bit more about yourself.
- We love this breed. We feel so lucky to be able to better the breed and provide wirehair and smooth Dachshunds to others.
- How did you get into breeding?
- Dana owned dachshunds first, she purchased her first show dog in 2008. Bentley moved to California in 2012 to live with Denise to do all the fun performance events that are not available in South Dakota like field trials, earthdog, coursing, barn hunt, and hunting performance tests.
- What makes your breeding program special?
- We focus on breeding structurally sound dogs that can excel in the show ring as well as in any hunting situation. We only breed a litter once every 1-4 years.
- What health testing do you do on your dogs?
- Dogs that we plan to breed, we do OFA eyes, hearts, and patellas. We have also Embark DNA tested all of our dogs. We test our breeding stock so that we know the traits that they carry so that we can pair them with dogs that may not carry the same undesirable trait. We also do Lafora testing with Genomia on dogs that have pedigrees from the UK.
- Rocky Mountain Earthdog Club
- Rocky Mountain Hound Association
- Rapid City Kennel Club
- Columbine Dachshund Club
- Sierra Dachshund Breeders Club
- Dachshund Club of Santa Ana Valley
- Dachshund Club of America
Denise has been a board member/officer for about 5 years with the Dachshund Club of Santa Ana Valley & officer for 4 years with the Sierra Dachshund Breeders Club. She is currently the Corresponding Secretary for both DCSAV & Sierra Dachshund Breeders Club of Los Angeles County. She is heavily involved in all events that both clubs put on year-round including conformation, field trials, earthdog, rally, & obedience. She is an experienced dachshund & basset hound field trial & hunting performance test judge as well as a Farm Dog Certified judge. She has judged conformation matches & specialty sweepstakes.
Dana is a previous board member/officer of the Rapid City Kennel Club. She has also judged conformation matches & puppy groups at all-breed shows.
In our daily jobs, we are both university/college faculty. Dana is an environmental science professor at a college in South Dakota. Denise is a librarian at a university in California.
