The Dachshund Cafe

The weekend before last we were fortunate enough to be able to attend the much anticipated Dachshund Café! We had such an amazing time and wanted to share our experience with you.

What is the Dachshund Café?

The Dachshund Café is a newly formed pop up dachshund only event which was brilliantly organised by Anushka and her team. They are the founders of the very popular Pug Cafes which run up and down all of the UK. The event ran from 8am to 6:40pm with slots every 70 minutes and 15 - 20 dogs
in each time slot. The cafes give owners and dogs a chance to socialise with others and also there are a few slots for people who don't have dachshunds meaning they get a chance to speak to owners to see what its like to own a sausage dog! Obviously, everyone says they're a dream to have, right?

Where was the Dachshund Café ?

This time around, the Dachshund Café was held at Esquires Coffee shop, in Guildford. It was a perfectly sized venue, which had plenty of room for everyone to socialise, sit and eat yummy cake! Just like the pop up pug cafes, it looks like the plan for the Dachshund Cafe's is to hold them all over the country, as the next one is going to be in Nottingham.

How Can You Get Tickets?

The Dachshund Café was so popular that it became fully booked very quickly! As there was a lot of media coverage for the event, there were a lot of people who wanted tickets (understandably as the event looked super fun). The process of securing your spot was actually really exciting!

A secret email was released a few weeks before the event at 9am and we had been told that the event was likely to become fully booked very quickly, so prepare your email beforehand! That's exactly what we did. On the day of release, we were up bright and early and ready to send the email! The time ticked away towards 9am and at 8:58 it was a constant refresh of the Facebook page until at 9am, the email was revealed. Normally I'm pretty rubbish at remembering things, but I took one glance at the email and was able to quickly type it into the 'to' box and send the email. Phew, that was done, but it seemed like a lot of people had also sent the email dead on 9am too. At the same time, there was also a separate email address released for those who just wanted to come along who don't own a dog.

A few hours passed and we were delighted to receive an email from the organisers saying we were successful for our preferred slot of 3:20pm. We paid our money (which was only £10 for 2 people) and was sent our invite, with a cute picture of the boys on it. We were also quite impressed to see that we were the second person to send the email at 9am!

The Day of the Dachshund Café

The day arrived and we were all very excited. We had also co organised a dachshund dog walk before our slot at 3:20pm as quite a few of our friends were fortunate enough to get the same slot as us! The dog walk was held at the Chantries Woods, which in hindsight maybe wasn't the best place to walk as, although beautiful scenery, it takes a lot of stamina to get to the top of the hills! Sorry everyone...

After the walk we all made it towards the coffee shop. The coffee shop was located at the top of the high street in Guildford, so plenty of places to park nearby. We approached the café and saw many eager dachshund owners outside, waiting for their turn to enter the Dachshund Café. It got to 3:20pm and the doors opened. The previous group (2:10pm) all came out with beaming smiles and the boys said hello to the sausages that walked out. One of the organisers explained how it would work and then asked us to show our tickets.

We walked in and were instantly felt at ease.

The café had been decorated with all of the pictures of the dogs who were attending throughout the day. There were dog water bowls dotted around the café and plenty of dog friendly cakes and biscuits for sale for any of the hungry pooches. We took a seat and let Jacob & Bruno off of their leads. It was a fantastic way for the boys to socialise and make new friends in a safe environment. After the slightly tiring walk, we were both pretty hungry so went to get some cake and a drink to re fuel us. Jacob & Bruno didn't miss out either as they were given a puppachino and LOVED it! There were plenty of picture opportunities and, Anushka (event organiser), came round and introduced herself. There was also a photographer there snapping away. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves and we even made new friends!

Would We Go Again?

Absolutely! The event was really well organised. Even though there were about 15 dachshunds in one room, the setting was a calm environment, so the dogs were really happy. The staff at the café were super friendly and the boys (especially Jacob) loved all of the fuss and treats they got. It was a perfect way to meet new people and all at the same time, you could enjoy some really yummy food and drinks! The carrot cake was delightful!

Thanks for reading about our trip to the Dachshund Café. They have their own Facebook page (Dachshund Café) where you can keep up to date with new locations that the event will be held in. We hope to see some of you at the next Dachshund Café!

Oli, Jay, Jacob & Bruno