Valley Girl

Due to some needed shuffling between foster homes, we were lucky enough to get Millie back after her spaying.  The operation was hard on her and she ended up having to go back and stay at the vets for 3 days.  After that it took some time for her to act more like herself, but her limping seemed to be getting worse.  We took her back to the vet and she tested positive for valley fever!  Poor girl.  She is now on medication and has been moved to a new foster home, who plans to adopt her once the valley fever treatment is complete.

We really loved Millie.  She would follow me everywhere, and I do mean everywhere:

Yes Master?

Yes Master?

Yes Master?

Yes Master?

My youngest daughter said "When I give Millie love, it feels like she is giving her love back to me".

We also made a great discovery with Millie for schnauzers that have never learned how to play with toys.  She had no interest in dog toys that require a bite to make them squeak, but we found a cat toy that taught her how to play.  It is a little mouse and it will squeak if bumped or moved.  That squeak brings out the terrier and Millie loved to play with it.

 

Millie is tiny by the way, here she is in scale with the rest of the pack.

The night before Millie moved to the new foster home, we picked up our next rescue schnauzer.  A handsome little guy named "Bob".

Changes

Returned from a week of work out of town to some BIG changes!

Travis is gone now, adopted by a family he was very happy to meet. Here the girls say goodbye to an awesome foster dog.
Below Travis is all fancied up and on his way to meet his new home.
Bye Trav, we love you!!!

Millie has also moved on to a new foster home. She made good progress while she was here. At first she was fearful of all of us but after a few days she turned into my Velcro dog. Anywhere I went, there was little Millie. She also loved the treadmill. She would do a slow pace for a good 30 minute. She moved to a new foster home that can help her continue to strengthen her legs and increase agility.
Millie has been replaced by another female named Simone. Simone has amazing coloring! She ruled the roost and needs to learn some manners and then she will be a beautiful, perfect family dog.

The other change is that while I was gone my wife adopted a new schnauzer for our very own. A GIANT schnauzer. She is 10 months old and we have not named her yet.

Several Updates

Travis is still with us and has made excellent progress on his recovery. He even romps and plays now! It has been so rewarding to watch him slowly change from a fearful dog to a happy dog. Travis is great with the kids and even lets them dress him up. He is fully adoptable and might be going to a family with little girls (where he will feel right at home). Very blurry picture but he wouldn't stop moving around.


Our puppy-pants has left us, but I found this cute picture of her.
Below is her replacement. Very much like Travis at first. She was completely ungroomed and matted and fearful of human touch. Once they got her shaved down we found her a touch overweight and fairly immobile with a lot of limping. We have had her a couple of weeks now and are making good progress with her. More on her later...




I also found this cute pic of the pair who stayed with us for a few days before getting adopted. I love smiling dogs. :-)

Dog Food

What do you feed your mini-schnauzer?

I like this website for dog food analysis:
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/

Look up your food and see what they say. My only complaint about this site is that it is too focused on "meat product" with less attention given to proper balance of protein, fat and others.

AZ Schnauzer Rescue recommends Solid Gold Hund-n-flocken' for mini-schnauzers. Why? While it is not ranked among the highest stars in the dogfoodanalysis website, it has lower fat than the top ranked foods which is important for schnauzers. Over several years and many many schnauzers, this food works very well with the breed.

Puppy Pants

Another returning to the system schnauzer. She is a schnauzer mix (we can't figure out the non-schnauzer part) and very much a puppy. I can never remember her name so I just call her puppy pants.
She was too much trouble for her new home and they had to give her back to Schnauzer Rescue. This one is pure puppy energy! We had forgotten just how much energy puppies have!!! We have been working on the basics with her. Sit, stay, no jumping, no chewing, no biting, no, no no... (when I say "we" I mean my wife ok?).
Don't get me wrong about this one. She is a sweetheart and wants to please, but she is very much in her puppy phase right now.



Another problem has been allergies. Since she is not pure schnauzer, I do react to her like I do other dogs.

Return Visit

Sometimes foster dogs end up back in the system for one reason or another and need a foster home until a new home can be found. A new family had already been located and since they live close to us we agreed to evaluate this pair and see how they behaved. We had these two for a single night before and so the kids were happy to see them again.

They were adopted out a few days later since they were fairly well behaved.

A quick in and out since there were no health issues or major behavioral issues.

I did not get very good pictures of them...

Shave and a hair cut

Travis returned from the vet all neutered up and shaved down. Wow he looked different! We really love his coloring.


With all his dreadlocks gone, we were able to better see his body language. It doesn't take a dog whisperer to know that he was terrified of people. Poor guy :-(
Below is a pic while we very sweetly and gently call for him to come to us.


Which he finally did. He quickly became attached to our middle daughter and he would follow her around when ever possible, and when not possible he would find a spot with as much of her smell as possible.


Of course he still spent his days watching fish tanks and TV.
For a while we had to cover my tank stand, but he has now been trained to not jump up and scratch the wood. He is eager to please once he figures out what you want.

As the weeks passed he became more and more comfortable with us and began to trust us and really became part of our pack.
Even Obi accepted him as a full member of the pack!
Our whole family has fully fallen in love with Travis. He is pure teddy bear and loves to sit with you and get all the love he can. It has been a real privilege to help this schnauzer learn to trust and love people. In return he has given just as much back to us.
One thing to note... Travis does not play! We have tried to get him interested in toys and Obi has tried to get him interested in dog play but he won't do it.