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By Jack Beresford
Senior Reporter
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A dachshund owner has revealed the reason behind her wiener dog's habit of shaking everywhere he goes—and as you may have guessed, it's not because he's cold.
Sidney is a busy dog as both a model and pupfluencer, with over 20,000 followers on TikTok. "Sid loves to snooze, to bark and to eat, but don't they all?!" his owner, Julia Oldham, from Staffordshire, in the U.K., told Newsweek. "He also loves to adventure, we take our pups everywhere with us so they have been on plenty of days out, hikes and dog friendly holidays."
There's something else Sid loves to do as well: Shake. He shakes on walks, he shakes during cuddles and he shakes while they are out in restaurants. You would be forgiven for assuming Sid is an anxious dog.
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After all, many dogs are anxious. In 2020, a study published in Scientific Reports saw researchers canvass 13,700 dog owners to determine how many suffered from some form of anxiety.
The results revealed that 72.5 percent of the canines involved in the study experienced at least one form of anxiety, with noise sensitivity (32 percent) ranking as the most common. Sid is sensitive when it comes to sound, with Oldham noting he is "terrified of fireworks or loud bangs" and "doesn't like walking in the rain."
But that doesn't really explain the shaking. In fact, Oldham said Sid has been a "confident and happy little hound" since the day they took him home from a carefully chosen breeder in North Wales in 2018.
Sid's confidence was boosted further when, at the age of two, his paw-rents brought another miniature dachshund into the family, Nancy.
"She is the cheeky little sister who wants every toy Sid picks up and who loves to wake him by pouncing on him. But she utterly adores him," Oldham said. "Sid secretly adores her too, but he's too cool to show it. They are complete opposites in terms of personality but they couldn't get on better!"
When Sid's shakes first started, Oldham said they "just assumed that he must be cold."
The penny did eventually drop, though, and Oldham was able to identify the true source of the shakes.
"We noticed that the shaking doesn't just occur when it's cold, but usually when he really, really wants something," she explained. "Imagine a warm summer's day, we would be eating a meal, and there he is shaking because he is waiting for us to share a bite. I don't think he was cold, do you?"
Suddenly everything began to make sense, with Oldham attributing it to the fact that "dachshunds are known to be extremely stubborn and headstrong."
"I am guessing that they sometimes can not control the extreme desire and anticipation in their little bodies and they start shaking, for instance when their favorite human is out of sight, when they really want their food - or our food!" she said.
Oldham is keen to acknowledge that shaking can occur for other reasons among dogs. "Shaking can be triggered by cold or anxiety, but it's important to observe your dog's body language and in what sort of situations they do it," she said.
However, Sid has his own very specific reasons for doing it and once Oldham understood the origins, she was only too happy to share footage of her "drama queen" canine shaking his way through life on TikTok. It got a huge response.
"People love videos about our pups' quirks so I decided to capture a few key shaking moments and their triggers," she said. "We got hundreds of responses from fellow dachshund owners agreeing that theirs does it too, and it was funny seeing dachshund parents bond with others from all over the world sharing examples of when or why theirs shake!"
Sid's shakes may have started as an unusual habit but, thanks to the power of social media, they have helped bring dachshund owners from all walks of life together and something tells us he won't be "shaking off" this new online pup persona anytime soon.
Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
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