Month old BIRTHDAY PICS!!!

OH GOODNESS,,,,,,
Tomorrow the puppies will be 1 MONTH OLD!!!!
I dont know where the time has gone.  It is an amazing thing watching these beautiful dogs grow and change and develop their individual personalities.
It is wonderul to see who has each of the qualities of their parents and how strong those characters are coming out, even at 1 month.

Onyx now wears RED!!

Midnight wearing PINK!!!!

Thunder wears  Black!!

Crowe will wear blue with his bow tie!

Grooming needs

Non Typical Coat of a mini schnauzer

People see the beauty of a mini schnauzer with a long fluffy coat/skirt and may want this breed just for the beauty of it.  This is NOT a reason to own the breed.  Owning a schnauzer can be alot of work.  For the non-typical coat as in the picture above, the owner will have to dedicate daily time of a minimum of 30-45 minutes combing and brushing out the dog.  This is with the consideration that the dog is a strict house dog and does not spend much time out of doors.  Which in my opinion is completely against the breeds nature and temperment.

Show Coat

 The coat you see right above is the standard SHOW coat.  This coat is an extreme amount of work and is usually only done to the show dog as it takes so much time.   Stripping of the coat takes a bit of time for a dog to get used to having done and can not be done all in one sitting.  Daily stripping of the "dead" hair is done with a special stripping blade. The skirt is kept short and close to the abdomen, with the legs trimmed in straight line along the line of the legs and not allowed to "hang" down.

                                                          BUSTERS LITTLE MAN
The 4 pictures above are of my male Salt / Pepper 
The face shows a before and after, and the body/skirt shows a before and after.
I have 3 mini schnauzers and my daughters chihuahua/shit tzu mix that I am always grooming in a rotation cycle. 
I have been doing my own grooming for the last 6 years.  I personally like to keep our mini schnauzers coats/skirts short because we allow our dogs to play outside most of the day, as well as take the dogs hunting when we are in Colorado. 
A long coat/skirt tends to get matted very quickly and catch lots of leaves, burrs, etc and adds to daily groom time.
I shave the back,stomach, head, and feet bottoms every month to keep a clean smooth look. One very important part of grooming is PLUCKING the fine hairs in the ears. This helps in allowing the ear to breath and thus cuts down on bacteria/fungus building in the ear leading to ear infections.  I will spend approximately 2 hours grooming one dog each Sunday. 
I enjoy this time spent with the dogs as it builds trust between us and allows me to work on teaching the dogs to be patient and well behaved.
I have found that dedicated time to combing and grooming of the dogs face teaches the mini schnauzer to allow the owner or its family members: especially the children in the family, to handle the dogs face, treats, food and toys more easily and the dog builds an understanding that the human is allowed to move around the face and mouth of the dog and they must not bite.

 

This is a picture of an easy to maintain and more often seen groomed face of a common mini schnauzer.  The eyebrows are shorter and the beard is trimmed a bit shorter. 
I keep longer eyebrows on Buster as he is older and does not go out hunting as much.
On Raven and Harle I tend to keep a mid length eyebrow which allows them to see well when hunting but still gives them the more German look of the schnauzer.
I never trim the beards on any of my dogs unless they happen to get a matt that  I cannot remove with the dematter or by splicing out with the scissors. 
If you take your mini schnauzer to a grooming salon this will usually be the typical cut you will get.  I always suggest that you take a picture to any groomer that you start to use so they will understand what YOU want when you say a typical schnauzer cut.
Different groomers have different ideas of typical and you may end up very unhappy if your schnauzers comes home looking different than you had hoped.
I always recommend getting recommendations from other people who have similar breed dogs with similar coat needs. 
Never use a groomer who does not ask you for a copy of your dogs vaccination records and is not willing to give you a tour of her salon.  Ask how long they have been grooming.  Groomers do not have to have a license but many do.  I do not have one but I have groomed other peoples dogs that I know on a very personal basis. 
A professional groomer should have insurance on the salon to cover any injuries that might occur to your pet while on the premises.

TOOLS YOU WILL NEED

FOR DAILY GROOMING OF YOUR

MINI SCHNAUZER

 

DeMatte, Slicker Brush,Steel CombGood Set of Scissors

Nail Clippers

De Matter

Ear Powder, Ear Cleaner

 

3 weeks old Oct. 19, 2012

Crowe(male)Onyx(female)

Thunder(male)

 Midnight
 (female)

Visiting San Isabel, Colorado Dec. 2011

My beautiful daughter
Alyssa and  I



Bishop's Castle
San Isabel National Forest
Absolutely gorgeous inside and out



Raven playing with the boys in the snow....Buster is in mid shake..... They always wear their coats!



This is a view of our home in San Isabel, Colorado during December of 2011.  We had 6 ft. of snow in 3 days during our 10 day Christmas vacation.  The dogs had fun playing in the snow, but our grown kids were a bit bored after the 3rd day.  It is beautiful and serene an we are excited about our move in May of 2013.

We will be moving to San Isabel, Colorado in May 2013 after much thought and prayer. We have looked for over 3 years for a home in this quaint, quiet beautiful little township in the San Isabel National Forest and have bought a beautiful home in the mountains. Our daughter has graduated high school and will be going onto further her education in the Fort Worth area staying close to the friendships she has formed and her full time job with First Convenience Bank. She has visited San Isabel and while she found it beautiful she didn't care for the large amount of snow we get there. She said she will visit in the summers!! Our son is in his Jr year in high school and is very active in his school drama program as well as developing his great bass playing with a metal band. He will live with his mom and visit us often. Lane loves the fishing on the lake with his dad.

Lake Isabel, CO....the future home of Crowned Schnauzers

Raven overlooking Lake Isabel, CO
which will be her future home
Raven is almost 2 yrs at this point



Nov 29, 2011
snow around Lake Isabel, CO

Harle-Master of Thunder
running around Lake Isabel, CO
Harle was born Feb. 15, 2011



Harle-Master of Thunder
He was 11 mo at the time

Ravens last rat

Well folks it has been awhile since I have posted. We have been a bit busy with the human agenda. I wanted to share with you what Raven shared with me. She actually snuck it in the house after her last "outside" call of the night. This was in June I believe. She ran straight to her kennel in the play room. I thought, "awh..she is trained so well..." The light was off so I did not see the friend she brought in with her.

The next morning I thought I smelled an ODD smell and let her out first to go potty quickly....

She ran out quickly all right with a dead rat in her mouth. She had "mouthed" it all night, but never bit through the skin. We dont use poisons so I was not worried, but she sure stunk.

I praised her and told her I was VERY PROUD of her for being good ratter. We have seen no rats since and with Ravens help she directed us to the nests unders our tool shed.

2nd Rat

Raven caught her 2nd rat the morning that Bart was to arrive. Maybe it was her welcome gift...
We will never know because we disposed of it. NO WORRIES...we do not use any type of rat poison and we always take them away from the dogs.
This one was bigger than the 1st.

We have a visitor

We are so happy to have Ravens brother Bart (Sheriff Bart) visiting us.
His mom had to take care of a family member out of town and we are blessed to have him stay with us for a week.
He and Raven were not sure of each other at first, but after about an hour they where chasing one another all around the yard. Bart was chased by Buster and Maggie as well. He definately fell into his strong breeding and took to his training that I do with Raven.
He is very smart and learned hand signals by the 2nd day and was jumping our hurdles by day 4.
He and Raven are playing what I call "puppy wars". They will do the chase and then tackle one another, tumble and roll and all the while biting and growling as if they are killing each other.
This whole act is role playing which is what they would be doing if they where growing up in the "wild" and having to learn survival techniques. They are learning what would be "take down" methods for the prey they would be hunting for food and how strongly they can and can not use their teeth. Some people see this and worry that they are hurting one another, but they know their own limits---or learn them very quickly.

Ravens 1st RAT

Raven killed her 1st rat at 9 weeks. What a champion. I was so proud of her. She has an incredible nose and can find any treat you try to hide. I have decided to train her for EarthDog as well as agilty.

We will be picking up Raven this weekend March 14th...
We are all so excited. John has bought her two new collars for her to grow into.
They are Pink Harley Davidson collars. All our dogs wear HD.
John went a little toy crazy with new toys too.
We have been prepping Buster and Maggie for their new siblings arrival.
Our kids are very ready as well.

Raven of Armani...Queen of Ashes 7 weeks old

Ravens 1st haircut!!! Getting Ready to come home!

Ravens Valentines Day pic

This is Ravens little Valetines Day picture! Isn't she gorgeous.