Finally, The Good

It is not bad at all to own a standard schnauzer, and I didn't want to give that impression in my last 10 posts (just kidding!). I am, in fact, crazy about mine. Here's why, in order of importance:

1. I am now the fittest I've ever been. My bad cholesterol is way down too. There's no way you will postpone exercise with a SS. Should you choose to skip it, your home will feel the consequences.

2. We feel extremely protected. As Kafka gets older, he gets better and better at his number one job. He guards me when I'm hiking and painting outdoors. He constantly patrols our home's perimeter. He even sits behind me during dinner. And he will not let any stranger or dog touch anyone in our family.

3. They are smart. The potty training was quick and so were all the other daily routines we taught him. Standard schnauzers develop large vocabularies and an insatiable apetite for challenges.

4. Entertaining. They may not retrieve, but this breed does everything with gusto, perhaps with too much enthusiasm. This confidence makes them funny and endearing. Schnauzers will always let you know where you stand, with their voice.

5. They thrive on new experiences. Now that his fear period is over, it has become clear to me that he is not afraid of people, other dogs, much bigger animals, or even fireworks. These nerves of steel make him a great companion on urban walks.

6. Iron-clad stomachs. You can vary their diet and they adjust pretty quickly. And they have prodigious appetites.

7. Beautiful. A day does not pass that I do not hear how handsome he is from total strangers. I am an artist and I would lie if I said I didn't care about looks. I put up with the grooming schedule because I feel it is worth it in term of the beauty factor.

The Terror of Adolescence

My dog is a teenager. He spends the day playing or sleeping. He runs through the house, knocking everything off. He argues with us when he does not like our commands. He wants to get his way and if he doesn't, he pouts and sulks. He is persistent. He has no other mission than to wait patiently for his chance to get what he wants.

In one of her manuals, champion breeder Sylvia Hammerstrom says, "I'm sorry if our introduction to the schnauzer did not give you the impression that you were going to live with the devil for his first year... at seven to eighteen months, he is like a teenager, a terror to live with." 

With a teenage standard, the terror starts early. At seven am, he is already awake and SO, SO happy to see us! My morning hello consists of an entire song and dance worthy of Janet Jackson. He gets excited and would inflict many soft little bites on my arms and hands if I let him. Then he follows us around, trying to get a whiff of what we're having for breakfast, but usually he settles on the floor, focused on destroying toys right behind my chair. After breakfast, he starts asking to be let outside, but mindful that this is usually the time when most of the neighborhood birds are feeding, we wait for an hour or so least he wake the neighbors with his excited, high-pitched barking. He will point at the back door with his body, race to it and stop, and try to squeeze through if you open it. Once outside he will want to check on you after a while, to see if you've gone to that mysterious place that requires a car. Satisfied that you're still at home, he will want to be let out again, and so it goes until around 10:30 when it is...

Nap time! He will insist on taking it near you, and until he settles down will try to lick your keyboard, your work documents or your hand, whatever's nearest. His naps are short though, because he never relaxes enough, worried as he is that you might be opening the gate to the garden, or that strange men might be leaving packages at our doorstep without his permission. He takes his naps on the floor because now he is not happy with just acting out fantasies with his bed, lately he has learned to open its zipper and take out the stuffing.

The terror takes a new meaning at the park where we go for one hour a day. Yes, he gets to burn a lot of energy because he gets to run free, and that's exactly what he does for the first 45 minutes, but not without inviting every single dog he meets to play. If we could put them in human terms, his invitations would sound something like this:

"Guess what! You are so lucky you get to play with me right now. This is what we do, you run and I bump you then bite your ears. Ready?"

Needless to say, he only plays with dogs his size or bigger. When we return he is mellow for about an hour. He usually takes another short nap if the house is quiet. But wait, it is around this time when he starts noticing you have not fed him, and so he goes to the kitchen and points to his dishes, then lays in the middle of the kitchen floor in wait until the much-awaited dish arrives. After dinner he goes back to the yard where he stands watch over all the living creatures that dare come near, but soon enough he gets a second wind because it's playtime again at around 5:00 pm. 

If the unfortunate monkeys gathered around the table try to eat their own dinner, he has been known to pull the tablecloth to let his plans be known. If we confine him to the back deck, he will let us know what an injustice this is. So we try to wear him down by playing fetch or tug-of-war right after our dinner. It is fun, but we are careful to not do it near anything fragile. He gets the evening walk after six pm, usually on a leash (try looking for a gray schnauzer in the waning sunset and you get the picture) and by the time he gets home, he is ready for his bed, until the next day, unless a visitor knocks on the door or passes near our house. Then his deep barks can wake up the dead!

Attack

[A schnauzer is] never one to start a fight but always one to finish it. Barbara Dille 

There are dog breeds that don't get along well with Kafka. Dalmatians, greyhounds and pit bulls. Larger dogs intimidate with size. These breeds intimidate with actions. Dalmatians and greyhounds issue warnings like any other breed, they just seem harsher. Some pit bulls don't. They go from zero to sixty in seconds.

In his 14 months, Kafka has been bitten three times, and always by under-socialized pit bulls. The first time we were at the dog park and an off-leash pit bull did not like how five-month old Kafka approached him. Instead of getting a warning, Kafka got bitten but was able to retreat unharmed. C'est la vie, I said. That's how puppies learn to respect elders. The next time, the dog was on a leash in a regional park, but he lunged as Kafka passed him on a trail. This time it was much scarier because it was so fast and because the owner has to wrestle his dog off Kafka. I didn't see Kafka defend himself.

This last time it was again at the dog park. Kafka had plopped himself on the ground and I had sat next to him. I was asking him if he was tired when we saw a pit bull catch a ball and, instead of turning around to return to his owner, circle us with the ball still on his mouth. Kafka, who was on a leash with a prong collar, growled at him. The dog lunged and Kafka lunged. They made contact and I realized I had to let go of the leash so that Kafka could defend himself. I was crying, screaming for help. I visualized which vet would I drive to and whether I could carry his sixty pounds by myself. I became aware of onlookers on the main road. The owner came running but it was almost impossible to separate them, as his dog had latched on to Kafka's neck. He had to pry his dog's jaws open and almost sit on him. 

Kafka was fine if a bit nervous. I believe his size and the fact that he was not afraid helped him this time around, because he would have been chased and attacked regardless of his reaction. As we got up to leave, he tried to lunge at the pit bull again, but by then the owner was securing his harness (it was a snap-on!) and mentioning that he would be on leash from now on. I checked him and the place where the dog had latched was pink and swollen but not punctured, so I felt immensely better. I washed it with soap and water once we got home, and Kafka just laid down and went immediately to sleep.

Other Seldom Mentioned Grooming Bits

Nails
After writing about clipping and stripping it ocurred to me I have never seen a case of a dog afraid of getting her nails cut on The Dog Whisperer. It is an extremely common fear in dogs, according to my vet. Perhaps there is no way to rehabilitate a dog with this fear. What I do know is that cutting the nails of a fearful mini schnauzer in no way compares to cutting the nails of a fearful standard or giant. You will be trying to hold down a much bigger animal, a dog that knows how much physical power it has, a dog that knows how to let you know you've overstepped your boundaries. That describes my standard Kafka.

He arrived from the breeder with this fear, and there was no way to gently persuade him that the grounding tool wouldn't hurt him. He would wiggle, he would wail, and he would bark. We just could not position him in a way that would enable us to grind. Later we tried the cutting tool, but he would only let us do one or two per day if we caught him sleeping. As he grew, so did his dislike, until we could only cut one or two nails with the aid of a muzzle. Then he needed a sedative because three people at the vet could not hold him down. So size does matter. And when his nails are long and he jumps on you, it's a hazzard.

Ears
The vet came out laughing after a checkup. He was only four months old. "All I see is fur, fur, fur, down that canal!" She sold us a vinegary solution you are supposed to rinse the inner ear with. We are also supposed to stick a cotton ball in the canal to soak up any extra solution. This is once a week to prevent ear infections. He tolerates this well as it does not involve scissors or other cutting instruments.

But if you read the puppy care books out there they will tell you to invest in a pair of tweezers to pull out hair from the ear canal. The books don't tell you that sometimes this causes the follicle to bleed and that this in turn might get infected. They don't tell you many dogs hate it. But we found out.

Teeth
This is the lightest part of our grooming saga. We have been brushing his teeth since he was very little, and he loves the taste of meat-flavored toothpaste. But he bites every single toothbrush we've bought. It is a game to him: "Let's see if I can catch this foreign object in my mouth!" We have gotten him used to getting his mouth inspected (after all, he is our Master Swallower) and he allows our fingers in there, provided we keep giving him a taste of that great toothpaste...

Clipping and Stripping

I am the average standard schnauzer owner. That is, I don't show my dog. He is solely a family pet. Before getting our dog, I did a fair amount of reading about the complex grooming requirements of the breed. I was sure I wanted him to look "like a schnauzer," meaning that I was willing to do what it took to maintain the look (with the exception of cropping the ears). At the time, I wasn't sure I would be stripping Kafka's coat, so I bought a couple of stripping tools as well as clippers. I was sure I would be using the clippers, at least for the face and under the tail, but I didn't know if I would want to strip.

Stripping
I went to a schnauzer show and loved the stripped look, so I bought a video from the Standard Schnauzer Club of America. As soon as I saw what it takes to strip a standard, I knew we would not be able to do it. The dog has to sit, without complaint, for a fair amount of time while the owner pulls out hair that needs to have grown to a certain length. It is not something you want someone else to do, unless you're rich and have lots of time on your hands or an assistant to drop off and pick up your standard (think Usher).

The video was frank. Some dogs tolerate it and some don't. It is true you need to do it by parts, or you can end up with a repetitive motion injury. Standard schnauzers are not border terriers. They are medium-sized dogs with lots of hair to pull. To add to my confusion, everything I read says the stripping knives pull out dead hair and that this does not hurt the dog, but I've now seen photos of dogs stripped to the skin. Live hairs must have had to be pulled to achieve that look. Does that mean some dogs will tolerate a fair amount of discomfort when their hair is completely pulled? I was not sold on stripping.

Then there's the issue of Kafka. It took me months of persistence and training to get him to tolerate clipping. I just don't think we could strip him, unless we muzzled drugged him. Not only is he a very determined fellow, he is BIG. When he decides he won't do something, I have to demonstrate to him that he must do it. And this takes a lot of energy. For example he hates anyone touching his nails, and every groomer in the area has refused to cut them, so now the vet does it, with a sedative. Even though a stripped coat looks wonderful and so natural, and even though you strip less frequently than you clip, I have to pass on the stripping.

Clipping
I am sorry to say clipping is no picnic either! But at least the right groomer can do it for a reasonable price, about $64. here in the Bay Area. Least you think that is too much remember the dog has to be bathed and that pepper salts and blacks are each challenging in their own ways. I clip Kafka's jacket every three months. It is true that the hair gets lighter and softer, they don't say that because they're trying to convince you to strip.

There is a steep learning curve to clipping in a manner where you will not be embarrased to take your dog out to the park the next day. I recommend watching a lot of videos (Skansen sells some and so does the SSCA), going to shows, and looking at as many pictures of show schnauzers with your dog's hair type as you can. You can't be afraid to make mistakes, and you need an assistant to hold her still. Your dog must be old enough not to get tired after 15 minutes, and trained enough to understand the concept of "you hold still for a couple of minutes at a time and then you get a treat."

All-grey pepper salts with soft american hair are easier to clip than those with german wire hair, or more contrast between light and dark areas. Mistakes are not that visible on hair that does not have a marked agouti pattern. When you are clipping a pepper salt, you must strive to cut at the same depth in similar areas. The deeper you go with the clippers, the more will the lighter undercoat show in the cut. In other words, if your cut is a mistake and you've gone deep into the coat, that area will show in a much lighter color than you would like. Similarly, transitions between clipped areas and those that aren't must be done skillfully, or there will be too much contrast between light and dark. It is bad when this happens on the face and on the elbows.

Then there's the issue of patience. Your standard schnauzer must sit for long periods of time and watch you cut with scissors around sensitive areas. Not just regular scissors, but blending scissors. Until I became more skilled with the clippers, I left a lot of work to the blending scissors, but even the best behaved dog has limits. I now use them mainly on the face and hocks.

I still like to do my own grooming, mostly because I am a visual person and I know someday I will start getting it right!

The Backpack

It was a cute accessory. It was the first thing strangers noticed. It took off some of the menace off the prong collar that Kafka wears on regional park outings. It was expensive. It was a dog backpack made by Kelty.

I placed his water on two small bottles, on each side. Now that it's Spring, he gets very thirsty on our 2-3 mile walks. At first he resisted the empty backpack, jumping all over the living room while growling. You would think he was wearing a muzzle! But he gradually got used to them, and when he no longer resisted I added the bottles. I was getting him ready for summer hikes. The red backpack was a hit at the off-leash park, adding visibility and another easy mile with the water carrying capability. He carried this weight easily. Standard schnauzers are strong, heavyset dogs who can pull small carts.

We went to a favorite part of the San Pablo Ridge, where there's a rock outcropping, sage and bees. I climbed the whole hill, but he stayed midway, digging under the sagebushes until I could no longer see him. Ten minutes passed. I was upwind and he could not smell me, so I decided to descend all the way and look for him. Once I got there, I could not see him either. I called a couple of times and then saw him, halfway up the hill, without the backpack!

He came down like a goat, jumping from rock to rock, happy to be rid of this human contraption. He passed me and continued descending in front of my massive disbelief. Since he would not let me leash him (Why now in the middle of all this fun?), I realized with dismay I would have to do some rock climbing or give up the backpack. My fear of heights notwithstanding, I climbed the rocks because I remembered the backpack had our remaining water and we were 45 minutes away from the car. So I scrambled up the hill and then held to the hillside with my toes and fingers, as I climbed past a beehive and many ground squirrel holes. I looked behind every rock but I could not see the darned thing, and started to worry the backpack hiding by some unreachable rock. Just then, I saw it, grabbed it and examined it, looking for clues on how Kafka could have wriggled itself out of it. I saw none, and once more came down the hill, very carefully.

Kafka was still downhill, looking for ground squirrels. He paused for a minute when he saw the backpack in my hand. But it would be a while before I could lure him to me with water and get him to wear it again.

Chased

This is exactly what happened in Golden Gate Park last year. Two coyotes moved
in -- most likely from Marin, by way of Golden Gate Bridge and the Presidio.
People began feeding the coyotes. They began fighting with dogs. People
complained, and the coyotes were shot.
David D. Schmidt

It was supposed to be a long Sunday hike on Alvarado Park. I packed two bottles of water to be on the safe side, put my hat on, and wore a short sleeved polo shirt because it was warmer than the previous Spring days. I kept Kafka leashed as we passed the area where the feral cat lives, and we kept on, climbing the San Pablo Bay Ridge. I didn't bring a walking stick because the ground was no longer slippery.

After about two miles, we reached an area that serves as food pantry to the park's raptors. Many ground squirrels (picas) can be simultaneously seen scampering from one hole to another. They can also be heard. Picas make a noise that sounds exactly like the tri-colored black bird's short call. Kafka was now off-leash and planning to check each and every one of those holes, I could see. But after a while, he got hot and decided to listen to my voice. He plopped down on the grass and let me leash him.

We saw a small figure approaching us from the south end of the trail. After a couple of minutes, I could tell it was a woman with four dogs, two of which were small. She was nice and asked us if we needed water, then picked up her daschund because he was tired. She left through another trail. Seconds later, a medium sized dog appreare in the distance. My brain said Dingo and I thought that perhaps he too was a member of her pack. But I quickly self-corrected: coyote!

Kafka and I beat a hasty retreat though the hills, with the coyote now focused on us. Kafka was hot and thirsty, and more curious about that strange "dog" than into cooperating. The coyote kept stalking us but kept some distance until we reached the part closer to the trailhead. Then we lost him. I was relieved. Although I knew Kafka would have defended himself, I was not about to find out who could have won. I kept thinking of the vet bills and walked faster.

Voices and Noises

Schnauzers have a tendency to be "vocal," that is, make a friendly growling noise at people or dogs as they pass by, call for attention, demand food or a chew stick, etc. Each one of these has its own distinct noise and pitch. Paul Whitaker

I will not mention body language because this is a post about vocalizations. I had read SSs were talkative, but I had no idea we would be holding entire conversations. At almost twelve months, I can talk to Kafka in sentences. I imagine he holds out for the key works he is able to distinguish in each sentence, then he responds. He uses sound only in extreme circumstances, preferring body language most of the time. The extreme circumstances would apply if I am preventing him from doing something he wants very badly, or if I am asleep. He does the same with dogs, being at his most vocal when he is wrestling or inviting someone to play, to the point where many other owners who don't know schnauzers ask if he is aggressive. 

Here are a select few from Kafka:

High to low pitch Nguuu... You've blocked my access. Shame on you.

Bow wow wowowowowowowowowowow     Stranger on the premises, everyone to their stations!

With short pauses: Raff! Raff! Raff! C'mon, play with me!

With no pauses: Grrrruff, grrrruff, grrrruff!    How could you show me something this scary?

Huh!     Wake up monkeys, I have to pee.

Low ruff     Didn't you hear me? I have to pee.

Low Grrrrrrr     I'm focused on winning this tug-of-war.

High pitch bark     There's a critter I have to kill. Let me go!

Long, loud Sigh    I'll lay on this floor for now, since everything around here is so boring.

Loud Ruff!  I have to do number two. NOW.

The Hater

Kafka and nine-month old Spitzy had found each other and were running back and forth along the waterline, wrestling and growling with delight. Spitzy's owner Anne had been sharing funny anecdotes about her, when a family group approached us. The fortyish man looked like an aging skinhead, with blue eyes, a shaved head and goatee. He had a black hoodie on, and black pants. The wife was standing next to him. The two blonde daughters were about ten and twelve. It was then I noticed his smiling face. He was addressing me.

"Is that your dog?"

"Yes, why?"

"Your dog bumped into me and almost bumped into my kids. If he does that one more time you're going to have problems"

"Are you serious?"

"I am. If he does that one more time you're going to have problems."

He was dead serious and was pointing to a bit of sand on his black pants, and he was no longer smiling. He must have seen the disbelief in my face, because he repeated the last sentence and pointed at the two dogs, who were playing farther away. His wife said nothing. His kids said nothing. They were all staring at me. I looked at Ann and we walked away. Just then Kafka and Spitzy decided to get into it, and I had to leash Kafka. We kept an eye on the whole group, as they ever so slowly left the beach for the parking lot. 

"That was a threat, right?" 

"I think so. I hope he is nice to his kids."

"And that he is not a wife beater."

I've Been Cooking

I've been cooking every afternoon for our standard schnauzer. I should say that perhaps a more appropriate term is "preparing food." Right now our feeding policy is an amalgam of philosophies, in the hope that he reaps the benefits of each:

Philosophy #1: What's wrong with dry food? He eats a high quality dry food in the morning, when we are too asleep to com up with anything more complex. It has the supplements he needs for the day. It does not contain wheat. And if he goes to day care, we pack a portion for the afternoon , but this is rather infrequent.

Philosophy #2: The BARF diet. He eats raw food half of the time. We buy a bag of raw chicken medallions that we defrost inside the fridge until feeding time, because we do not give him raw chicken or turkey parts to eat. He does also eat raw meaty beef bones about twice a week, but no pork bones and very little bone marrow (too fatty). Now that he's a year old, he digests these raw foods a lot better. No more gas! We do not feed him dairy or human food like sweets.

Philosophy #3: The anti-cancer diet. Kafka has loved fruits and vegetables since he was a small puppy. He eats these separate from his meals, as snacks. Very seldom do we give him biscuits or processed dog treats. because we want to equip him as best as possble to fight infections, cancer and other diseases with a variety of fresh food. We also feed him cooked proteins such as eggs, sardines, organ meats, and hamburger, mixed with barley, rice or potatoes.

Philosophy #4: The anti-obesity diet. Kafka is 22.5 inches at the withers, and 58 lbs. He is a big SS who would like you to think he's starving all the time. But with the snacks we give him, it's hard for his weight to exceed the 60 lb mark. We also measure his food with dishes made to hold exactly the amount of food he's supposed to have at each meal. When we want to do something special for him, we don't feed him treats, we take him to the beach.

I would have liked to completely follow one or another, but the tweaks have happened because of my experience with Kafka, and my realization that lots of breeders are actually paid to promote one or another brand. The good news is that he has a great appetite. This is not a breed that refuses anything edible, and that's why it's up to us humans to be careful.

On The Water

Water-loving standard schnauzers. I took mine to a small beach today. He can't swim yet, but he gets in the water if other dogs are doing the same. One was swimming to retrieve a big stick. Kafka waded in, then waited until the other dog got to shore to snatch away his stick, or at least engage in a tug-of-war of sorts. He wanted to retrieve the stick floating yards away, but he stood chest deep in the murky bay waters, as if thinking, "I wonder how this other dog can get to the stick."

In the meantime, I tossed sticks much closer to shore, which he retrieved. He would not drop them at my feet, content to leave them where I would have to work at retrieval myself. If he intercepted the retrieving dog, he would grab an end of the stick and growl, or chase him along the beach and try to climb on his withers with one paw, growling all the time. This went on for about twenty minutes, then most of the dogs his size left and we went hiking.

He had a red backpack on. People would ask, "Is he a special kind of dog?," and I would say, "Yeah, his job is to carry his own water." In reality, I put on the backpack because its color would help me see him in the deep underbrush growing at the Albany Bulb. It was empty but for the sand it had collected during the retrieving excercise. On the edges of this landfill, cement rubble prevents you from enjoying a flat, safe hike. So I can call, "go back," and he will backtrack out of the smaller paths. If I point and say, "this way" at a fork, he will go in that direction. And If I say "water," and he is thirsty, he will sit and wait for me to take the bottle out of his backpack. We are getting used to each other, even near the water.

Tricksters

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing
good once in a year. Voltaire

Kafka wants us to let him out. Because we don't, when he thinks we are not looking, he places his two front paws on the kitchen counter and grabs a kitchen towel. When we take this off his mouth, he pulls the tablecloth and my coffee spills. Minutes later, he pushes the door to a forbidden room and runs off with my mom's knitting.

It's 6 AM. My partner wakes me up with this short sentence: "Kafka took off." I leave the house in my pajamas, screaming OMG to myself. I walk quickly up the street trying to spot him in the dark, but I don't need to look for long. He approaches me, wagging his stub, feeling excited
at this new way of finding fun and lets me leash him after evading my partner for more than 20 minutes.

I'm at an off-leash park with Kafka. He spots a small dog in his line of sight and he crouches. I know what's next: he pounces and growls. The owner screams for me to leash him, but it is impossible, the small dog is running in circles and Kafka is trying to flatten him agains the
ground with his paws.

He meets another dog, a sweet Rhodesian Ridgeback, at the park. They play for a while, and I talk to the other dog's owner. After a while, Kafka plops down on the ground, tired. The other dog stands close to his owner wagging his tail and Kafka decides to get up and move closer. His tail proves too tempting to Kafka, who decides to take a bite off it as he passes. The Ridgeback succesfully avoids a bite by sticking his posterior between his owner's legs.

We get inside my truck for a ride to the park, but then my new ABBA CD, sticking out of the player, catches his eye. In less time than I can say Kafka, he has bitten a quarter-size chunk off it, and before I know it, he's swallowed it, because I can't find it anywhere inside the cabin. I'm reduced to scanning his poop in the hope that he migh expel it in the next few days. We take him to the vet for x-rays and discover he's also swallowed part of a corn cob that he's fished out of the trash.

The Chew Test

At the local pet food store, I find myself explaining why I won't buy any more plush toys for Kafka. "He destroys them all within minutes. First the squeaker comes out, then the tag, then the stuffing. The toy itself is shredded last." The store owner, a woman in her forties, made a face and spoke up: "If you don't provide him with toys, he will turn YOUR things into toys."

I took a look at their display. Some of the toys they sell have several layers and are sewn quite well. One expensive toy company claims to test their toys with tigers. But in small print, at the bottom of the label, you will find that none guarantees their toy against determined, aggressive chewers. Their toys, as it turns out, are not to be used as chew toys. In other words, if you find your dog chewing on them, you are supposed to remove the toy. These toys are made for dogs that fetch, not schnauzers.

So we've instead invested in rope and rubber toys. He destroys the squeaker inside any rubber toy immediately, but at least the toy will have a few more hours. We found a nylabone that lasts about a week. Synthetic rope works best, as it cannot be shredded into long strings that end up in his intestinal tract. And that is actually why he does not have toys that come apart. Like many schnauzers, ours is a master swallower. If he suspects his toy will be taken away and it fits in his mouth, down the esophagus it goes. Good thing that he has either pooped or thrown up everything he's ingested. 

I waited for a minute before responding to the store owner. "Well now that you mention it, he does seem to have a thing for glasses. I'm on my third pair."

How much do they hunt?

I ran out of breath. It was raining softly. The hill was simply too steep and slippery for me to continue climbing. Below me, deep in the ravine, I could still hear the clink-clink of Kafka's tags as he looked for a way to reach the cat (now perched on a branch) he had pursued a minute ago. I knew that if I called his name, my one-year old would know I was still waiting for him and would take his time coming out of the oak grove. No, my best strategy was to pretend I was walking back to the car.

A couple of minutes later I saw him coming out of the north side, his head scanning the horizon from side to side. He was clearly looking for me. I crouched but it was too late. Having spotted me, Kafka happily trotted back to his magic kingdom, too much fun to be abandoned for a mere primate.

Just what is it that makes Standard Schnauzers stop listening when hunting is involved? Many other dog breeds were developed to be hunting companions. Several breeds were developed to rat, so Standard Schnauzers are not unique. But here lies the detail: Standard Schnauzers were not really bred to aid in the human hunting agenda. They were developed to kill rats and other vermin on their own as farm dogs. Read no soft mouth, no delayed gratification, no holding at bay. Read great focus and determination, and little regard for human needs when something as exciting as a chase is taking place. The folks at Carabella describe this powerful instinct:

Standard Schnauzers go nuts over squirrels. Just say the word squirrel or bunny
and they start looking. Mine have killed moles, rabbits, rats, other rodents of
which I have no name, and, unfortunately, birds. My foundation bitch, Bella,
brought me one rat. I screamed and hollered, so that was the last rat I saw. She
also used to bring dead birds to me and I would always tell myself that the
"bird had to have been sick". Then I saw her catch a bird -- a cat couldn't have
done better. She especially loved to catch crows. Fortunately, she is the
only dog who has ever brought me a bird but I do find them chewed on in the
yard. The Standard Schnauzers we live with today ignore the parrots but I don't
know what they would do if the parrot was on the floor which sometimes happens.

So why had I not found this when we were doing our research on this breed? Could it be that I had glossed over the subtle warnings found on the breeder websites? We live on the border between a very urban area and a semi-rural city, next to a regional park where cows, coyotes and mountain lions coexist. This means Kafka looks for and chases small animals on every walk he takes. I wondered if he is one of those standards with a very strong prey instinct.

Twenty minutes later, I scanned the edge of the grove, but could not hear anything anymore. I had walked too far. I finally saw him again from the top of the hill. This time, he was digging for gophers and ignoring my calls, something he seldom does. Ok, time for Plan B. I had to scramble all the way down the hill to where he was. I knew that if he found a critter near the surface, this would hold his interest unil I could leash him. But by the time I got there, no gopher had dared to tease him. He was still pacing, still in hunter mode. I pretended to find something interesting on the ground. I took out the real liver I take on off-leash outings. I even announced I was leaving. But the hunter mode in a Standard Schanuzer is very strong. I could not persuade this puppy who had been so good in his obedience classes to get near me.

Cursing my decision to take this path, I waited until he passed me close enough, tackled his 60 pounds and got a hold of his hind legs, then leashed him to my body. We trodded uphill, both of us muddy and wet. Slowly, Kafka morphed back into domestic dog, politely sniffing the ground by my side, never pulling or falling behind. By the time he climbed in the truck next to me, he was exhausted.