Dynasty's No Matter What

I had wanted another black and silver Mini Schnauzer for six long years, ever since losing Sadie. I finally found her in Denver, August 2000 and I was ecstatic! Mattie’s very special name had been picked out for months. All I needed was the dog, so Colleen and I drove down to Arvata, Colorado to check out this pup bred by Millie Shultz and there she was, "Dynasty’s No Matter What", a.k.a. "Mattie".

To say Mattie livened up our house would be quite the understatement! Mattie at 10 weeks already had what we’ve come to know as “the look”.

The fascination with dryer sheets begins early. I guess she knew it was a family tradition.

Mattie settled right in like she owned the place. Can you tell? One look from Allie says it all, “Get her outta my bed!”

Mattie especially likes to stockpile all the toys, then lay on top of them. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.

The abominable snowdog-Mattie’s first snow.

Mattie loves to sit in my lap and help me do the daily updates to Montana Pets on the Net. I should have known then, Mattie was destined to be a programmer. One day I got an email about the strange stuff appearing on the purebred page. When I checked it out, I discovered Mattie had made a few additions of her own, which I had unknowingly loaded for her.

Then we’ll never forget the night Mattie opened her store. She has always loved climbing on the treadmill but she finally figured out that I keep a lot of interesting "stuff" under it too and that was even better. I left her upstairs unsupervised for a few minutes and when I returned, Mattie had dragged out a roll of price tags (for my book) from under the treadmill and you'd have to have been here. Everything in our bedroom was now on sale for $7.95 including Mattie. I finally retrieved all the price tags (I hope) and Mattie was NOT happy that I shut her sale down. She went back under the treadmill to pout. All I could see was a snout sticking out. She is too funny.

This is my favorite picture of 4 month old Mattie.

Mattie’s first Christmas.

Mattie’s favorite thing of all though is having her teeth brushed. Every time I go near the bathroom she follows me to beg. I have to put her on a sit/stay to brush Allie's teeth because Mattie will crawl in her mouth after the brush. She is fascinated with mouths. I think she wants to be a dentist when she grows up. One day our Sheltie lazily yawned real big with her eyes closed and Mattie reached over and stuck her whole head in the Shelties mouth. Boy was Kelsey shocked to find a Schnauzer in her mouth.

It didn’t take long to figure out Mattie was an Einstein in a Schnauzer suit so I signed her up for obedience FAST. Experienced obedience people come over to us frequently after watching her work to say “Wow, have you got yourself a working dog or what! This is the dog most of us dream of having.” Gulp, I hope we’re up to this.

One of my favorite memories-the day I was doing some distraction work with Mattie outside in the driveway to get her ready for her first fun match. She lined up and I said "heel" but she didn't heel. I looked down to find Mattie just glued to the ground staring with eyes big as saucers. What was so fascinating? ANTS! Mattie had never seen them before. She cocked her head one way and then the other. She was just transfixed staring at these marvelous little things that move in every direction. Then she'd put her paw out and try and bat them like a cat. It was so entertaining and fun, that practice kind of went out the window.

Mattie was much too bright for her own good and becoming quite a handful at 9 months so off we went to Auntie Gwen’s otherwise known as Daree’s Bootcamp For Dogs. What a week we had! I’ll never forget the look of betrayal on Mattie’s face when Gwen put “the dog that won’t be groomed on the table.” It was pitiful. LOL Guess who won.

Mattie's first birthday.

Stay tuned! Coming Soon: Mattie makes her debut in the ring January 2002.

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