dachshund vs. dachs

thanks wikimedia commons

Or, dachshund vs. badger, the fearless burrowing animal the breed was shaped to battle.  This chromolithograph by Carl Friedrich Deiker dates from around 1875 and is executed in a realist style.  But . . . the badger is so sinuous, smokily colored, and seems so unconcerned, it's almost as if it's a spirit animal.  I gather actual badgers are not so philosophical when disturbed.  The way this composition loops round and round reminds me of Deiker's fellow German of a later time, Franz Marc.  I wonder if Deiker had similar ideas about the essential forces of creatures - after all, the dog is following his purpose, which he could not do without his eternal opponent.  (This is me thinking like a 19th century German.)