Page 176 - Showsight April 2013

is that they were developed to work geese,
goats, pigs and cattle. So without train-
ing they use too much pressure for lighter
sheep and ducks. A large part of training
a Schnauzer to herd is teaching them to
reduce their presence and not panic the
sheep. Because Standards start off with
enough pressure to make even calm,
heavy sheep flighty, they are convinced
that all sheep are crazy and need more
pressure to be brought under control. A
trainer familiar with upright, intelligent
herding dogs is a must.
The sports of obedience and rally
appeal to a Standard’s desire for order,
and the breed has many titlists at the
highest levels of obedience competition.
If you avoid drilling when training, your
dog will happily rise to your level of
expectation. Unless your timing is exqui-
site, physical correction can backfire by
violating your Standard’s sense of fair
play. Correction whether verbal or physi-
cal is best reserved for proofing when
you know your dog knows his or her job.
Standards make dynamic and motivated
agility partners.
To maintain your Standard’s speed
on course you must remember that
what is important to you is what will
be important to your dog. If you insist
on accuracy at the expense of speed they
will slow down, if you run pell-mell
without being attentive to how you com-
municate what direction they should
go, they are likely to go off course. Your
best chance at maintaining your dog’s
natural speed and creating clear com-
munication is a balanced approach to
teaching these skills without excessive
“fixing” of off courses in competition.
Standard Schnauzers that take agility
seriously are not afraid to provide feed-
back and criticism to sharpen their han-
dler’s skills. With a Standard, agility is
truly a team sport.
The Standards you see at Schnau-
zapalooza are less likely to kill vermin,
drive livestock, or guard home, farm and
merchant’s carts than their predecessors,
but they are still problem solvers with no
equal. Those of us who own and love the
breed are forever grateful to the German
farmers who were faced with a problem
and decided to let the dog solve it.
BIO
Diana received her undergraduate
degree in psychology from Dartmouth
College and focused on the behavior of
mammals for her doctorial research at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. Diana has been in charge
of the Education Department at Mesker
Park Zoo & Botanic Garden since 2000.
Diana has taught a variety of audiences
over the last 15 years including under-
graduate classes at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the
University of Southern Indiana, basic
dog training, operant conditioning and
agility classes. She has written several
articles for Clean Run, a training jour-
nal for agility trainers and enthusiasts,
and taught several sessions at the 2008
Clean Run Instructor Conference. She
has served as the Director of Training for
the Agility Club of Evansville (ACE) and
on the Board of Governors for the Stan-
dard Schnauzer Club of America. She is
currently the SSCA’s Health Chair and
President of ACE. Diana has had the
pleasure of living with Standard Schnau-
zers for more than 20 years. She enjoys
agility with all of her dogs, herds sheep,
shows in conformation and dabbles in
obedience. She breeds Standard Schnau-
zers on a limited basis under the Irondogs
kennel prefix.
“STANDARD SCHNAUZERS THAT
TAkE AgiLiTy SERioUSLy ARE NoT
AfRAiD To PRoviDE fEEDbACk
AND CRiTiCiSm To SHARPEN THEiR
HANDLER’S SkiLLS.”
“To maintain your
Standard’s speed
on course you must
remember that
wHAT iS
imPoRTANT
To yoU iS
wHAT wiLL bE
imPoRTANT To
yoUR Dog.”
176 • ShowSight Magazine, April 2013