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We are only a couple of weeks out from getting our puppy! I scheduled the pick up appointment for the 26th and I just realized how quickly time has flown by! The puppies are huge! I have photos but don't have my laptop to be able to post the pictures I want. We have started finding and collecting things we need for the puppy and found a local feed store that sells the exact dog food and goats milk the breeder feeds her puppies. Once she is old enough, I will be switching her to raw food which works well for the property's malinois working dog as well as our own farm dog. We are very excited to bring our puppy home! |
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Giant Schnauzer just won BIS at Westminster! |
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Stormsong Manor said:
Giant Schnauzer just won BIS at Westminster!
I saw!! It's so exciting for the breed! Now just to hope that people do their research on the breed before saying they want one lol |
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Today is the day my fiancé and I are headed to the breeders to pick up the puppy in the morning! It's a 6 hour drive from where we live so we are staying the night in a hotel near her house and then we pick her out first thing tomorrow! It's a two hour process overall at the breeders just to make sure we are getting the right puppy, getting questions answered, information packets, and all of the extra little things. We have the POL and have our eyes on one of the puppies in particular that the breeder has said would make an excellent working dog. So fingers crossed that is the one she lets us bring home! |
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We picked up our puppy yesterday and have had her with us for about 24 hours but about 12 hours at home since it was a super long drive back to where we live from the breeders. I will post some photos shortly, I have been super consumed with watching her. She is very curious about everything, scared of nothing and loud noises barely phase her, and just as expected she is mouthy! We accidentally bought toys that were a size too large but that's ok since she will grow into those very quickly. She is massive for a puppy at 8 weeks old! She is about knee height. She is determined to get what or where she wants and is very smart. |
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From the time Sadie could walk, her breeders started playing with the puppies using a horse lunge with a rag tied to the end of it. This is the early training needed to produce quality protection and bitework dogs. Schnauzers have a prey drive but their defense drive is a lot higher. So using the lunge toy works well to help improve their prey drive and really test to see if they have drive. We have continued this practice with Sadie at home and she does great with it! Whenever she catches the rag, we were instructed to tug at it a little to mimic what it would be like for her to bite a person's sleeve/leg/arm and then let her "win". This means she is fully given co tell of the toy/rag and she chews on it and shakes it around very proud of herself. Here in a few weeks after her 12 week vaccinations she will begin puppy classes and more serious obedience and protection work to get her ready for IPO shows. She has grown a lot since the last photos and sleeps a fair amount. When she is awake though, she is an absolute fur demon lol! |
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We have talked with the trainer yesterday and have Sadie lined up for an evaluation after her 12 week vaccines and an ear crop appointment. Ear cropping is super controversial but we decided to do it for her safety and success in the IPO sport and show ring. The primary reason though is safety since we live on a farm and the donkeys and goats especially like to eat floppy ears. I won't discuss it here much more than that but if you have questions or concerns please pm me.
. the trainer we spoke with is amazing and we are taking our other dog in for an evaluation this weekend. He has some issues that we want to work through, specifically obedience issues, as he was at another board and train facility and just didn't respond to their training at all. What was supposed to be a 3 week course turned into 5 weeks and they gave him back saying he was the most difficult dog they have ever worked with. Anyways, he will go in for an evaluation, we are going to get a demo done by some of their protection work dogs, and a tour of the facility. That way we can get a better idea of if they are who we want to go with for Sadie. They recently had a giant schnauzer in (last week) for protection training and he just finished with his training. We have seen the videos of him and it's very impressive. It's $60/session for obedience per dog unless we bring in another dog and then they give us discounts. And then $90/session for protection work once the dog is big enough and old enough to actually damage a bite suit or sleeve. We are super excited to see how everything goes, we have heard great things about them from the Malinois owner who works on the property and went to them with her dog for behavioral evaluation. So I think this will work out well! |
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It has been a WHILE since I've updated this. Life has been so busy and complicated that I haven't had time to enjoy the things I love including this game. Things have slowed down a bit (for now) so I'm here to update you all on Sadie's training, progress, and growth.
I guess a great place to start would be with her weight, height, and how she is doing overall: Sadie now weighs over 50lbs. She is 6 months old and her head is up to my waist (I am 5ft 3in). She is doing very well and eating an astonishing 8 cups of food a day. This was determined an appropriate amount of food by the vet, trainers, breeder, and ourselves. Any less food than this and she starts getting rib-y and doesn't do as well throughout the day.
Her training is going amazing! She knows two different languages (French and german). She knows sit (and stay), down (and stay), stand, focus heel on the left, focus heel on the right, bring, out, place, bark at a target, and bite a target. We have increased her training sessions from once a week to twice a week and do two to three sessions of controlled play each day. Controlled play is a game where I have a toy and it is my toy that Sadie cannot have until I tell her it's ok to have it (I use the word "yes"). This has improved her obedience and overall well being dramatically! She has to do commands before I give her the go ahead to have the toy and then make her really run for it. Fetch isn't a game we can really play with her because it doesn't wear her out like this does. She has such high energy levels and has to constantly be doing something otherwise, she will pee in her crate even if she has just been out and went to the bathroom.
the hardest thing of this all is controlling her drive. She has such high drive that she just constantly goes. No off switch just yet unless she is cuddling in bed with us but she has to chew a toy to be calm. Her drive also means we have difficulty with grooming her. She doesn't want to sit still and sees grooming tool as toys which she will take out of our hands. We have worked a lot on this and finally have her to a place where she can sit still for a couple of seconds without trying to steal the clippers. |
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Heavy Downpours, Flood Warning
