Stages of Miniature Schnauzer Puppy Development into Adulthood

Birth to Two Weeks - Neonatal

At birth our puppies are weighed, their vital signs recorded and they are assigned their soft fabric coloured collar, always in the same order. The following day their birth data is recorded into our spreadsheet and the puppies are then closely monitored, particularly if there are puppies under 160 grams at birth.

Puppies are born with their eyes and ears closed and rely on their sense of smell to find mum and their siblings. Puppies are in a whelping box in our bedroom so they can be monitored easily throughout the night. At this stage neonate puppies can’t regulate their temperature, it is essential that puppies be kept warm, particularly their bellies as this aids their digestion. There is always an electric heating pad in their box which they very quickly learn to find and sleep on.

The first 3 to 4 days puppies are not strong enough to wriggle out from under mum’s foot or from behind her back, so we are on hand to respond to any cries for help. At around 5 to 6 days they start building a lot of strength and can wriggle and push to get out from under mum, or to fight for their milk bar rights.

When a litter of pups is lovely and healthy, at 7 to 10 days they should plump right up and look ‘squidgy’ and well filled out. This is the stage we call them the little slugs!

Throughout this stage the mother dog toilets the puppies by licking their bottoms to stimulate wee’s and poo’s and … she keeps the ‘nest’ clean by eating the result of the stimulation, if you get what I mean. This is instinctively her way of keeping the nursery clean.

Two to Four Weeks

At 10 days the puppies eyes start to open and when they do, they are blue. At 2 weeks the ear canals start opening and the puppies will start responding when we walk in into the bedroom where they are. At around 2 to 2 and a half weeks the puppies will start to climb up the walls of the whelping box - they are starting to want to move away from their nest, to go to the toilet.

This is our cue to move them from the whelping box in our bedroom, to a puppy pen in our lounge room. This is set up with their bed at one end and puppy pads from the bed to the other end of the pen. At this age they are too small to easily get in and out of the bed so we spend the first few days regularly waking them up from the bed and putting them onto the pads and once they’ve toileted, helping them back into their bed. They pretty quickly work out to toilet away from their bedroom.

Puppies are still feeding off mum and still need a heat pad in their bed to regulate their body temperature. We change their soft velcro collars for the matching colour ribbon collars that we make.

Four to Six Weeks

Eat, Sleep, Repeat!

At around 5 weeks we start introducing their first food, cooked and blended sweet potato and finely minced beef and some raw goats milk with added infant probiotics to help their tummies adjust to their dietary changes.

The puppies start becoming engaging when we speak to them, they will start wanting to come and meet us and their little tails will start wagging. Teeth will start to emerge and as they start to explore how to use their newfound little needles, we will start to train them not to use their teeth on the humans. This is my favourite development stage, if I could freeze them right here I would - it is so cute to see them start to interact with the world around them.

At this stage we can start to see some little stand out personalities emerge and we note who the quieter puppies are. Their ribbon collars are replaced by the matching colour Blackdog Wear puppy collars. It’s really important for puppies to grow up with a collar from birth as they are used to it being there. If a collar is introduced at 6 weeks, they will spend the next week to 10 days incessantly kicking at it with their back foot because it’s new and irritating, they find the change quite stressful and it completely wrecks the collar.

Any time from 5 weeks, some of the puppies will start pacing the puppy pen desperately crying, although they have never been outside before, something is telling them that they need to be further away from their bedroom and dining room to toilet - so we start taking them outside to use the grassy lawn. This is where the much loved ‘WeeWee Wagon’ comes into service to start ferrying the puppies outside to the grass several times a day and night, we validate them asking us to go out because this is training them to have good toileting habits for the rest of their life.

Usually from the second day of taking them outside, we will start leaving them outside during the day and bring them back into their pen at night. This gives the puppies access to new stimulus from changes in the weather, different sounds and smells and their exposure to other dogs is carefully started here. They start learning to sit for their food.

Six to Nine Weeks

Puppies are into exploring and playing and can get up to some pretty rambunctious behaviors, this is how they learn to interact with each other and other dogs and it’s important that they be exposed to as much as possible.

They will be meeting all of our other dogs and having lots of different interactions and we start managing any emerging behavioral things such as bullying behaviour, excessive reactive type barking, using their teeth on the humans and jumping up including putting their feet up on us. Sometimes an adult dog will discipline them for pushy or rude behaviour, this is an important part of their socializing and learning that the world does not just revolve around them (who would have thought)! Up until now the puppies have been living together and are starting to have reduced time with mum as she is starting to wean them, so they are seeking each other out more so than mum.

We teach the puppies to sit and wait until the release word for their food and we start testing their listening. This introduces impulse control around a very desirable temptation.

At around 6 and a half weeks we start crate training, the puppies will come in at night and start going into separate little crates in our bedroom. Here they are starting to learn independence from each other, to tap out from the world and be at peace in their own space. This is often their first experience of doing something against their will and we carefully manage their reactions to this new concept. Julie Andrews singing ‘Stay Awake’ has the most wonderful affect on putting first time crating puppies, off to sleep.

The lead is introduced and we teach them to come off pressure and eventually to walk on a loose lead on our left side. Some other basic foundation training is started here, young puppies are amazing learners - never say ‘they are just a puppy, they couldn’t do that’, because we have proved time and again that they definitely can.

Nine Weeks to 14 Weeks (3 1/2 Months)

Puppies will be demonstrating baby puppy behaviours and will start trying to push a few boundaries with their behaviours - behavioral training needs to have started by now so the pup can be guided as to what is acceptable behaviour, and what is not acceptable. Leaving a puppy to work that out with either no guidance, or ineffective guidance, will start that puppy transitioning into adolescence that will be wild and exuberant from the puppies perspective, and barely tolerable and filled with shrill noise and sharp teeth from the human families perspective.

3 1/2 Months to 9 Months

Puppies transition from puppy behaviour to early adolescent behaviour and they will start loosing their puppy teeth to be replaced by their adult ones. This transition means they will start pushing boundaries a lot! At this stage of their life if we humans weren’t involved, they would be learning how to survive and find their place in their world and this means experimenting and rough dominating play so they can work out who the leaders are.

If puppies receive no guidance, this will lead them to start being reactive and over stimulated, they will start barking and growling a lot more and will really start to use their teeth on humans, furniture, plants, books, you name it - everything has chewing potential and for a Mini Schnauzer, everything that moves or does not move, needs to be alerted ie barked at, and they don’t have an automatic off button for barking, they love barking.

If training hasn’t already started, it needs to be implemented here - this is one of the hardest stages of owning a dog but just know, if they are given solid guidance here, they will emerge as a wonderful and reliable adult dog. Puppies need to have a reliable training foundation established at home and then they need to be taken out to experience the world around them and given strong guidance from their handler, of what is acceptable behaviour when they are out with their humans. Frequent well managed outings that are used as training opportunities are the best gift you can give your young dog. We don’t recommend regular group play with other pups at this stage as it encourages the pup to be completely distracted from it’s handler. Often this type of ‘Dog Park’ play is very uncontrolled and can either shake a young dog’s confidence or completely overstimulate a young dog and it will loose all ability to listen to it’s handler, this may start the pup pulling hard on the lead, lunging at other dogs and barking excessively.

9 Months to 2 years

This is what we deem as later stage adolescence. They are starting to push a bit less, but they are still pushing some boundaries. If behavioral training has been done effectively, you will start to see flashes of what your adult dog will become and they start to feel like they are settling down just a bit.

2 Years to 10 Years

Adulthood has been reached, dogs in this age bracket becomes calmer and more reliable with their behaviours. If the hard work of training has been put in place, now is where the rewards from that are really reaped, you will be taking your dog out with you into the world and it will get to have so many wonderful experiences with you -what more could a dog really want?

Species specific diet is essential, a good quality diet and regular raw meaty bones to chew will set your dog up to live a long and healthy life with shiny clean teeth. Don’t forget to check their teeth regularly, they should be nice and white and breath should smell neutral. Any sign of stinky breath should be followed up immediately, it’s a sign that the dog isn’t getting the opportunity to clean it’s teeth and may require a veterinary teeth clean.

10 Years to Senior Years

At this stage of their life dogs will start slowing down. Their hearing may start to diminish and eye sight can start to become poorer. This is a good time to start introducing a quality joint supplement, we love 4Cyte Epitalis, to support their joints and connective tissue. Their diet may need a bit more lean protein to keep muscle tone and exercise is important to keep their bodies moving, swimming is one of the best as it puts no pressure on their joints. It is ever so important to make sure older dogs don’t carry too much weight as this will add pressure to their aging joints.

Older dogs are so precious, they have lived their life around loving their family, they are the heartbeat at our feet.

Their Twilight Years

At this stage of their life, our old companions are higher needs and they will have greater requirements for their comfort, but our old friends still need to feel important and like they have a purpose.

I distinctly remember my Grandma telling me “when the times comes, they will tell us”. I believe that to be true if we have the eyes to read them. I truly believe making that final decision needs to be about them, not us. It is the hardest decision that I’ve ever had to make for my old friend, but I also feel it’s were I can give them the greatest dignity and respect. I personally, want to be there when they leave, I want to be the last familiar thing that they smell and feel.

Our homes are blessed by the unconditional love that dogs give us. That is why they are so special, because they are different to us, they are dogs.