My wife and I were on vacation and had someone watching our Pomeranian, she (the Pom) darted out the door and got ran over. My wife was at a loss because she really loved that dog, but couldn't bring herself to get another one. We couldn't even go to pet stores because she might see a Pom and would start crying. At that time she happened to see a local breeder had a minature schnauzer that they were selling. We went by to look at the dog. (wasn't real sure what it was or looked like) The breeder basically told us that we would have to be able to spend a lot of time with the dog. Make sure that we had at least 2 or 3 tennis balls around the house. Wasn't real sure what she meant by that , but we got the tennis balls anyway. She also told us that the dog would be real protective of us. The breeder also went into general care and options about the ears and grooming. The ears basically she told us that if you are not going to show the dog, don't put the dog through that

The first thing the breeder told us to do was to take the dog to our vet and have the dog checked out. The vet looked at the dog and asked if we bought the dog from just an individual or was it a breeder, reason being that the dog was in very good health and everything looked really good. We went ahead and got a well-puppy plan from the vet, it made real good sense at the time, because any time during the first year that we have the dog we could bring it in and they would check out the dogs health and answer any questions that we had. It also included all the shots the dog would need for the first year, and after adding up the cost just for the shots, it would have cost more than the plan that they offered.

After the first year, we decided that just one wasn't enough. (Besides that, the dog attached itself to me and not my wife) The second one ended up being from someone that we thought was a good breeder. They pretty much went through the deal about telling us about the dog and all that. When we got to our vet is when we found out what kind of breeder that person really was. The dog had worms, ear mites, ear infection, fleas, and they had cropped the ears when the dog was only about a week old. It was also a MALE. We got the dog all fixed up and we went for the well-puppy plan again for this one, and that did pay off for us. Once we had the dog bathed and groomed, he was about the sweetest looking little puppy.

About male schnauzers. They are great until they get to puberty, then they start getting a little weird. If you are not planning on mating the dog, HAVE THEM FIXED. After the first time of mating, he started getting a little aggressive, the second time, we wanted to wring his little neck. If you do plan on mating the male, do it then as soon as you are done, then have him fixed. After having him fixed, he mellowed out a whole lot. We decided to let our female have a litter of pups. Cute little things. Ended up we couldn't adopt out all of the pups. I think our first mistake was coming up with our own nicknames for each of the pups, but you have to have some way to identify one pup from the other. We kept the first born. The male was not sure what was going on because all of a sudden there was more dogs around than he knew what to do with, and the mother was not really wanting him too close. He soon learned that he wasn't welcome in the bedding we had setup for the pups. He and the pup soon became play buddies. He chases after the ball and gets it. The pup promptly takes it out of his mouth and runs off to another room with it. The male soon found that if he hides the ball under the couch, that the pup can't get it. (Neither can he for that matter) I would be happy to answer any questions you may have, just email me builder2@kc.rr.com

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