RIKY and the sofa
I remembrer one story. It is about a lady dog, which wanted to do things according to her mind: In the same moment when her owner left for work this dog went to the livingroom and lay down on the sofa. She appreciate this comfort so much that she started to ignore commands of her master. She growled and when she reliazed that showing the set of her teeth made her master doubtable she knew that she had won the sofa. The owner didn´t dare to square up to her so every morning she had had to put the dishes on the sofa until the lady dog discovered that lying among the rumbling dishes is not as comfortable as before. And so she stopped using the sofa.
You know, the schnauzers can be like that, if their master isn´t able to train them properly. But we have to say that the master of RIKY was very imaginative.
ADINKA – the motorist
When I had a lady dog Adina Šar-Kat, her mania was anything with four wheels which was moving. Our car, somebody else´s car, never mind, the mean thing was to go. If the dogs could have a driving licence she would be probobly one of the first dog student in the school of motoring.
One early Sunday morning we went home from a walk trough an empty car park, actually it wasn´t empty, there was standing a car with all the doors open. Its owner was lying under it and repaired something, on the back seets there were the tools and when he needed one he took it with his hand unless he had a look from under the car. I was running to the car because my dog had disappeared! She lay down on the back seat and she was waiting for the car to start. In that moment I could see the man´s hand getting from under the car and he started to search in my dog´s mouth. And then it was like a crazy, the man jump fom under the car and started to shout in fear, perhaps he thought he had a devil in his car. My dog had to get out of the car, I apologized and explained, and the man got out of the shock and after my expanation how it was with ADINA and cars he stated to laugh. Perhaps he could understand my dog´s love and mania for cars and he promised to take her for a ride.
ARDY mushroom-picker
Do you like mushrooming and then the fried mushrooms or other delicious mushroom meals? That you are the same as me. As soon as there are mushrooms growing I take my basket, call my dog called Ardy and we go. My problem is that basket, I am always leaving it somewhere but I have my dog. I tell him „Ardy, lost basket, bring!“ And Ardy is comming in a while with my basket in his mouth, very excited and feeling important. He loves this game and he does the job very faithfully. He carries the basket with pleasure a few kilometres to the car, but when he gets running the mushrooms fly out of the basket. If you like this game and you would like to try it with your dog, my advice is to wrap the hold of the basket with some binder, unless it gets damaged quickly. But the fun is worth it. I still try to find out new games for my dogs to avoid their selfsufficience to show itself.
These were some funny stories, I am pretty sure you have many of similar ones. I don´t want these pages to be only statistics.
Let me tell you one more story, which really happened and which would touch your heart. The story is not mine, but the writer called Irena Sehnerova gave me the courtesy to tell you.
If you are interested in her books about dogs, her web sides are: aura.sehnerova.cz
And here is the story, the schnauzer staring:
The schnauzers have excelled in a role of duty dogs. They are excellent guards. During the war they were used by German army as sleuth-hounds, men hunter. There is this memory left:
In 1939 the German army ocuppied Prag. There was a Judish boy stopped by the a group of soldiers in the streeet, but he started to run away. The soldiers started to shoot at him so the boy ran into a block of flats. They send a dog to get him, the dog was a giant schnauzer. The dog ran behind the boy to the last stock, because nobody of the people living in the house didn´t open the door to help the boy who was begging for some help. The boy snuggled down to the attic door, his knees under his shaking chin. There was dead calm in the house. The claw beats were coming. Suddenly there was a muscular dog in front of the boy. The animal and the man were staring at each other eye in eye. The boy put his head on his knees and he was waiting the dog pouncing on him. But the dog turned and left.
I am sure that current dog trainers would say that it was the mistaken of the dog (because well trained dog should have caught the boy and have called the soldiers by barking. But people who survived the concentration camp would consider this act mercy and kindness. „The only one who showed me kind heart was the dog, big schnauzer.“ said a witness of holocaust.