Can an Older Schnauzer be Trained? (Steps & Examples)

I remember the first time I had to sign a disclaimer at our groomer’s office. She noticed Livi’s birthdate and broke the news that I needed to absolve them of harm if she had a heart attack or other severe reaction during the grooming process. It was just a necessary precaution, but it forced me to realize that our small girl was “elderly” at the ripe old age of eight. It also reminded me that she had developed some bad habits and I wanted to re-train her. Was she too old now? I wondered, so I did my own research and first-hand training.

Can an Older Schnauzer be Trained? Yes, you can train an adult or senior Schnauzer. Schnauzers are intelligent, natural problem solvers and can learn new things at any age. You may need to adjust your training methods and have some patience, but old dogs can indeed learn new tricks.

Aging is an inevitable part of life, and your Schnauzer will become a senior sooner or later. In this article, we will look at some of the reasons you should train or re-train your senior Schnauzer, and consider some basic, practical training steps with two real-life examples.

But first, let’s start by defining when exactly Schnauzers become “elderly” companions.

At What Age Are Schnauzers Seniors?

Most Veterinarians consider dogs, regardless of breed, to be a senior at between 7 and 8 years of age.

However, the size of a breed can impact aging and lifespan. Small dogs, in general, live longer and are not considered to reach senior status until they are a decade old. Very large dogs tend to have shorter lifespans and reach a senior-level age much earlier.

As a result, many Veterinarians (and Schnauzer owners) consider the Schnauzer senior age breakdown as follows:

SCHNAUZER BREED	SENIOR AGE
Miniature Schnauzers	10-12 Years
Standard Schnauzers	7-8 Years
Giant Schnauzers	5-6 Years

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Keeping in mind the reality of your Schnauzer’s age can help you stay alert for age-related issues and incorporate plenty of preventative care.

Maintaining your Schnauzer’s health with regular Veterinary visits, vaccinations, healthy diet and exercise, mental stimulation, and a lot of meaningful interaction with you can keep her more youthful regardless of her literal age.

Health aside, there are plenty of reasons you may want to train or re-train your senior Schnauzer. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Training Your Adult Schnauzer: Signs You Need to Do It

Just as puppies have specific characteristics due to their age, seniors have developed a lifetime of habits and preferences. Training or re-training a Schnauzer at any age is, however, possible because of their intelligence and eagerness to please their human family. You might be interested in my article Are Schnauzers Smart (And How to Tell).

Your Schnauzer can bring you companionship, joy, and unconditional love. However, when your older dog continually disobeys or shows behavioral problems, dealing with the issues can be a regular source of stress for you (and your Schnauzer, to be honest).

Ensuring that your Schnauzer, at any age, is well-trained is completely your responsibility and actually strengthens your mutual bond. Regardless of age, or temperament, all Schnauzers can benefit from additional training and behavior development.

Here are some situations that indicate you need to train or re-train your senior Schnauzer. You can do it yourself, or enroll in an obedience class for stubborn behaviors.

Bad Habits

Aggression, barking, and pulling on a leash are several behaviors you may want to change in your Schnauzer. You may also want to stop her from begging for food or sleeping on your bed. As she ages, you may also need to address potty accidents and train her to urinate on a pad.

Some bad habits stem from a place of boredom and may simply require inventive ways to stimulate your intelligent Schnauzer. Training is considered to be invigorating mental stimulation and can replace bad habits with new behaviors.

Adult or Senior Adoption

If you have adopted an adult or senior Schnauzer, you will most likely need to train her in ways that suit your and your household.

If your adopted Schnauzer has been neglected or abused in any way, you’ll (no surprise) have an extra training challenge.

Even under previously loving conditions, an adult schnauzer might have been able to do a couple of things in its previous home that you do not want it to do in yours, like lying on the furniture or jumping on guests. To ensure that she learns, and also retains, the right behaviors for your home, you should start teaching her the basic rules for your household on a daily basis.

New Skills and Commands

Your adult Schnauzer is perfectly able to learn new skills that you have never chosen to teach her. If she has not had formal obedience training previously, you may want to incorporate it now. In addition to shoring up good behaviors and teaching new behaviors, the training may be good mental stimulation for your aging friend.

Obedience training is also great if your adult Schnauzer has lingering issues socializing with people and other dogs. This class will enable you to see how your dog reacts to strangers and other pets in a safe environment with a qualified dog trainer to offer advice when you need it.

You can also simply teach new skills and commands at home. Remember that Schnauzers generally learn a new command within 5-15 repetitions.

General Training Tips for Senior Schnauzers

One cardinal rule of training is to make sure that everyone in the family is on the same page. When everyone agrees on the appropriate behaviors and utilizes the same rewards and commands, your Schnauzer will learn more quickly and also retain the training for longer.

Regardless of what you are trying to teach your adult schnauzer, from “stay” to “leave it” to more complex behaviors, several basic guidelines will make the entire process easier:

Use Rewards and Praise

Modern pet trainers believe that canines learn faster and better when you reward with treats and praise them for getting it right. Long gone are the days of punishing them when they get it wrong.

Be Consistent

Make sure that everyone who is around your Schnauzer uses the same cues and follows the same rules you use. In addition, daily practice is key.

Keep the Training Short & Sweet

Obedience training works well if it’s fun, but you should stop before the dog gets frustrated or bored. Keep the mood of the session upbeat, not dead serious, and ensure that the sessions are short.

Make Success Possible

Start training in a quiet and familiar place without any distractions, and gradually make it more challenging. Train slowly and do not move to the next step until the dog masters the current one.

Keep Practicing

Do not expect that once your Schnauzer has learned something, she has learned it for life. Keep up with regular practice. In addition to reinforcing current skills, regular practice gives you an opportunity to build in new skills. Again, this is great mental stimulation for your aging Schnauzer.

Training Includes New Activities

Training also includes the mental stimulation that comes from learning new skills, tricks, and activities.

Schnauzers need more mental stimulation since they are incredibly intelligent and can become bored. If you don’t provide sufficient mental stimulation, you might see some destructive behaviors in your schnauzer or even signs of depression or stress. Take a look at my article Is My Schnauzer Stressed? How to Tell and What to Do.

Mental stimulation generally refers to the learning process inherent in obedience training, puzzles, or even a new sport such as agility training.

Obedience training will keep your Schnauzer’s mind sharp and also provide her with the mental stimulation, good behaviors, and the structure she needs.

A new sport, given she is healthy, could be an amazingly invigorating, new experience. Check out my article What are the Best Sports for Schnauzers? for some ideas to consider.

Training can also even come in the form of backyard obstacle courses or indoor treat puzzles.

Training an adult or senior Schnauzer can be more challenging, but these breeds are incredibly intelligent and active, and are always eager to learn regardless of their age.

THE SCHNAUZER COLLECTIVE

Basic Training Examples

It’s easy to talk about training your senior Schnauzer, but if you need to bush up on your command skills, there are some practical ways to get started.

The training steps below can be applied to other basic training skills your senior Schnauzer might need, or even simply new tricks you want to teach her for the sake of mental stimulation.

Two Basic Skill Training Examples

Sometimes even basic skills might need refreshing, especially in new situations. Or, it’s possible that you simply didn’t teach one or more basic commands. Here are two examples:

Teaching the “Stay” Command

Teaching a senior Schnauzer to “stay” under various circumstances can be a work in progress, however it’s an excellent way to teach her self-control and delayed gratification.

Here are the basic steps for the Stay command:

1. Command your Schnauzer to sit.
2. With your open palm directed toward her, say “Stay.”
3. Take a step back.
4. If she stays in place, give her a reward and verbal praise.
5. Increase the number of steps you take each time.
6. Always reward your Schnauzer for staying, even if only for a short time.
7. Repeat Daily.

Teaching the “Down” Command

Teaching a senior Schnauzer the “down” command may take awhile, but it is a good skill for any dog to have in her repertoire. It can help her to calm down and feel safe if she is anxious or stressed.

Here are the basic steps for the Down command:

1. Place a very aromatic treat in your closed hand.
2. Put your hand next to your Schnauzer’s nose and allow her to sniff the treat.
3. As she continues to sniff, gently move your hand down to the floor and allow her to follow.
4. Once she is in the prone position, say “Down.”
5. Give her the treat and verbal praise.
6. Repeat daily.

Real-Life Senior Training Applications

We are currently training Livi to refrain from jumping on people when she is excited. It’s a more complex behavior to re-train, so it’s taking some time.

However, we have trained or re-trained her in two specific ways recently (both with terrific success), and she is currently 13 years old:

• We have re-trained her to sleep in her small bed at the foot of our bed (she likes to sneak up the bed and lodge herself between us). The behavior has been a long-standing challenge, but once we were consistent (meaning, we put her back into her bed throughout the night and used the “stay” command) and rewarded her with petting and a favorite blanket, she adjusted within a week and has stayed put.

• We have also trained her to figure out new treat puzzles and to exercise some self-control. For example, as Livi has aged, we’ve kept her stimulated with increasingly challenging treat puzzles. Our youngest son taught her to delay the gratification of sniffing out and obtaining the treats by training her to “stay” as we fill the treat puzzle and place it on the floor. At the elderly age of 13, she has not only learned the puzzles, she has also learned to stay in place (even with the treat puzzle waiting for her on the floor) until we say “go!”

Potential Challenges to Training Older Schnauzers

As dogs age, they may become less mobile, more prone to disease, and their hearing and sight may not be as great as they used to be. Senior dogs will not only begin losing their youthful pluck and energy as they age, but they are also at risk of developing common age-related health complications.

Although training an older Schnauzer can be gratifying and successful, it can also be challenging if she has health issues. Some of these problems include:

Stress

Even though Schnauzers are smart, hard-working, adaptable dogs, an aging Schnauzer has probably become accustomed to her routine. While learning new skills and even incorporating new formal training such as another level of obedience training or a sport like agility training can be invigorating, it could also be stressful.

Look for signs of stress in your senior Schnauzer and adjust accordingly. My article Is My Schnauzer Stressed? How to Tell and What to Do will be helpful.

Joint Problems

One of the most common causes of joint stiffness and pain in older dogs is Osteoarthritis. It’s a progressive degenerative illness that leads to the wearing away of cartilage in the shoulders, leg, and hip joints as well as loss of lubrication. Training an adult Schnauzer with joint problems can be difficult because it can make the condition worse. Schnauzers are particularly prone to hip displaysia, so look for signs of lame or weak back legs.

Obesity

The weight of your Schnauzer can have a great impact on her health and training, especially as she ages and perhaps becomes less active. Older Schnauzers carrying a lot of weight are usually more prone to illnesses like diabetes. In fact, Schnauzers are generally prone to be overweight and are genetically at risk for diabetes, so regular exercise throughout life will be important.

Cognitive problems

Just like humans, dogs can lose cognitive ability as they age which results in symptoms similar to those of Alzheimer’s. Cognitive issues in dogs will result in them taking a longer time to learn new skills. You will want to work with your veterinarian if you suspect cognitive issues, but consistent training may help to extend cognitive skills for as long as possible.

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Training an adult or senior Schnauzer can be more challenging, but these breeds are incredibly intelligent and active, and are always eager to learn regardless of their age. While many people associate obedience training with puppies or young dogs, the reality is that Schnauzers can absolutely learn at any age.

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