Unusual winter... for their good!

Weather here, in PA is amazingly warm this winter. Puppies are taking full advantage of it and enjoying their games outside... This was one of our today's walks... even it was not that long, but it gave them possibility to explore, bond with each other and humans and use natural terrain for great exercises without investing at expensive agility equipment! In fact agility equipment will not be any good for puppies of this age, but they can do good deal of climbing and walking on hilly side for their own good... naturally we only do it because of weather is the way it is and all puppies were vaccinated a while ago.

Who is training whom?...

 Dogs are amazing trainers. Believe my word, based on many years of living together with our dogs and observing just how good they are with training of their humans. And schnauzers are brilliant in that, so carefully watching us, collecting evidence of our weaknesses , learning our push -buttons and using them to get a pleasant for them,schnauzers, response . Probably,all our puppies families remember me mentioned that "push-button" theory when you got your puppy, don't you,guys? :-)  

One of the most successful way to make humane to do what dog want is to use " I-am - going -to - starve -to-death" tactic. Not a lot of people can stand their dog missing a meal. Often it starts very innocent way - morning, you have to go to job, million things need to be done before you leave . Familiar with this? I am. :-)
And here he is - Thee Dog. And his bowl with food, what , for some of his own reason, dog did not touch.
In human mind ( well, no offend, in woman's mind for sure ) all kind of scary thoughts start immediately run onto each other "is my doggy sick? I have to stay home...I can't stay home,not today... what if he is really sick, his eyes are so sad...why he did not eat? ". When we short in time , brain have tendency not to think long-term programs, but offer us most quick and seems to be logical at the moment solution. Here , bowl with food already picked up ,food topped with cheese . And - moment later it's gone. Dog is not going to die from starvation. You are not going to run whole day thinking only "what if he is sick'. It did the trick.
You got a peace of mind. Dog got food.And cheese. And - perfect lesson how to make human to give him cheese on a top of it.

Next time he will try to push you a bit more. Some more of a struggle look on his sweet face , few more minutes /hours of not touching his food. What would be your breaking point be?
And,like I said, schnauzers are masters in manipulating of their humans. We have a dog in the family, who,probably, deserved a professor in human study title. Lots of you remember our black Quincy. She belong to our daughter , and when our girl moved out of nestle, Quincy moved with her. This is when the fun begun. :-) At first, everything was all right. Then little Quincy start slowly pulling small tests on Veronica ,refusing to eat dry food...then the other kind of dry food...super-holistic food...canned food. The funny part is - while the little poor doggy was visiting us to stay for day or two, as our daughter was working weird hours job, Quincy was just her usual self - "vacuum-cleaner like" food gulping dog , same very food she totally refused to eat an hour ago at home.

Veronica decided to switch the dog on home-cooked meals only ( we usually are using half-and-a half ration for our dogs ). It was a huge relieve. Dog and humans were happy and world was perfect. For a while.
But last evening I had a phone call from our daughter. In the morning Quincy refused chicken. In the evening bowl with rice and beef dinner was left untouched. Quincy with sadness and straggle imprinted in eyes was pulling a" hungry dog guilt" trick on her family from the pillow. I clearly start to feel a notes of stress in my child voice .

I do not know how far this dog can bring this game. But look like grilled hamburger what our son-in-law presented her did not meet any objections. :-)

Aren't you agree schnauzers are great trainers? :-)

Sammy's litter - vet office visit video.

Today we went to our wonderful vet office. It was a totally new experience for puppies, but they weren't scared a bit, just curious. 

They got to meet with both our vets adorable Lisa and always-trying-to-be-serious doctor Allan, not counting all their office stuff vet technicians and assistants. We are very pleased how puppies acted and they all got clean bill of health too. Naturally You will not see me on a video (but you will see plenty of Irina!), somebody has to run camera. So... here they all are.. Enjoy!

Puppy Play (Sammy's puppies getting use to the Great Outdoors!)

Weather is still way to warm for this season and we taking advantage of it by taking puppies out every time it is nice and warm there..

Today they had something new to do and to learn - we put collars and harnesses on little ones and let them run around. Every time you do something like that in your house, puppy is very destructed with new "something" what you put on him. However if it is a element of nice game outside, it is not as bad any more and soon they forget about the fact - they have to ware something... what they not so sure they want to ware..

It was very successful session - they learned something new and... it wasn't scary!

Meet Mr. Schnauzer!

"Mr. Schnauzer"

I want You all meet one more schnauzer today... The painted one!

I decided to make nice addition to my resent paintings and spice it up with attitude of my favorite breed!

This is my first work in  new  K-9  painting series. Naturally it is "Mr. Schnauzer".

Best news... he is available for adoption!

If you want to learn more about  about this beautiful dog, and how exactly he can be adopted

please visit him on my

Daily Paintworks.

Sammy's puppies are growing.

Our weather here in PA is staying unusually warm. Few days ago we reached 60F here and even slightly over. Sure it was great opportunity to take puppies in the yard and introduce them to the Great Outdoors!

Irina brought them out two at the time to make it "more personal".

We hope they had good time exploring and looking around. 

..and of course some of them liked it better then others!..

Naturally I had to grab my camera, so we can share this experience with you.

End of January/beginning of February! I can not believe it!

And here I am - taking pictures of fat cute pups playing in the green grass!

Please stay tuned... more updates will be coming!..

Jasmin's litter was born!

Just like you can see, Mommy Jasmin was expecting... for the last time! I'm going to retire her after this liter.

Normally Jasmine has about even amount of black and Black/silver babies, but this time she surprised us with complete litter of blacks. I knew she will come up with something "special" at the end and she did.

We ended up with 5 beautiful puppies - 3 boys and 2 girls. After jasmine is done feeding and taking care of them, she will go to her new home and live long and happily ever after with Our Veronika

and her soon-to-be-a husband Todd. Veronica already has Jasmine's daughter, Quincy, what she took along when she moved out to her finance and now jasmine will be second dog in their house to make Quincy a company. Sure they both will be visiting often, so it is not really like saying "goodbye!".