Stanley Has His Moments

Stanley allows his sister to sit in the driver's seat and it is impossible to tell why.

After all that is the rule of the wild. The 'pack' has always lived with the credo of the strongest taking what he/she wants and the rest of the pack splitting the rest down the line.

To bring you up to speed: We are raising littermate Miniature Schnauzers. Stanley is a gorgeous Salt and Pepper boy and Steffi is morphing from a pure black into a stunning black cut with silver. I think it is cruel to try to raise one small puppy by himself if you are not going to be there in that crucial 'socializing' time. My research turned up exactly nothing on raising two at the same time so I have literally been writing the book myself. For information on that please consult my Resource Paragraph at the end of this article.

Now back to the story within this article. Suddenly Steffi took over. Stanley outweighed her by a quarter - their weight currently at thirty-three months echoes the ratio - she weighs seventeen pounds, he comes in at just short of twenty five.

She trounced him twice and that was enough to transfer Stanley from Alpha into Omega.

There was no blood. She nicks him every so often as they play and Stanley has the holes in his hide to prove how sharp her teeth are. Her favorite habit (and still is) is to grab him by the collar and mop up the floor with him. He loves it. He simply goes limp and lets her have her pleasure.

I think he lives with the old adage that any attention is good attention.

However he has added a 'twist' which makes his existence a little easier.

When she has something or a position next to one of us he wants he has developed two plans of attack.

He will go into another room and select the toy that he thinks may attract her. He will saunter back into our room, biting, growling and slamming the toy from side to side like he had a protesting cat in his mouth. He will brutalize the toy until Steffi can stand it no longer. She jumps off the couch, jumps on him and takes the toy away from him.

He does a good job of 'play wrestle'. Like wrestling you, know. He watches her and as soon as she moves toward him he drops the toy and circles around to what he really wants.

Also he has found out that he can bang the louvers on the strip windows near the front door and she will eventually come looking. He will slam them open and bark like crazy. She can't resist it. She runs over there also. He immediately gives up his place at the window. She takes over and he runs around the table and takes the spot she was occupying.

This is a slice of odd behavior since he is the hardest one to train. Sometimes when I drop a treat into his cage he completely misses it. Can't tell whether his nose, his eyes or both is creating the problem. They love the dried chicken strips and would literally do anything for a good sized chunk. I have noticed that whenever we give them any kind of 'goody' Stanley will look at his smaller sister seemingly asking permission to sample. Many times he will not touch the treat until she is half way through hers. I have to watch them at this moment because if she finishes first she will walk over to him and he will instantly drop whatever he has. If it is a treat he will step away and she gets a double treat.

However there are times when I drop a piece of it in front of him and he totally misses the fact that it is there. Because of all this we are 'eyeballs and ears' in our attention to make sure he is not handicapped. He obviously is not in pain. We'll keep you posted.