Hello!! We are Barry and Diane Ykelenstam, breeders of proven top quality CKC Registered Miniature Schnauzers, bred first and foremost to be healthy loving companions that can adapt to the lifestyle of your family. We live in a beautiful semi rural setting in Prince Edward Island, Canada. We for the most part breed salt and pepper and black and silver minis, while occasionally having some solid black pups and some solid white pups as well. All our dogs and puppies are born and raised in our home and live as valued family members. They are born on the top floor of our 4 level home, in a bedroom directly across from our own master bedroom. That bedroom was converted into a whelping/puppy room and that is where our babies are raised for the first month or so of life, so they can have peace and privacy away from the other dogs. This spacious comfortable room is where they are weighed, monitored, snuggled and stimulated daily. Then when they are solidly on their feet, they are moved down to the family room for more space to run and explore, with supervised access to the fenced in yard multiple times daily (weather permitting) for beginning housetraining. They also get to be more involved with the rest of the dogs and normal hubbub of a family home. The family room is in the center of home life activity, with utmost attention paid to their mental as well as physical socialization. We do not have kennels and runs that they are imprisoned in, away from family life. Mini schnauzers thrive with the companionship and the love of their owners, and just need to be with their family as much as possible. They truly need to be a valued and treasured family member.

This breed is highly social and they should never ever be raised/housed in a kennel environment, most especially puppies! Their future ability to be a well adjusted adult is dependent upon this critical time of their life being spent being loved, socialized and even *educated*. Young puppies are like sponges, and their behaviour reflects how they are raised and trained. They soak up whatever is presented, be it good OR bad, so it is necessary to find a breeder that makes sure that what the puppies are doing and learning every day is to be a happy healthy well adjusted pup, which the new owner must continue the minute they get their puppy home. With the high level of intelligence and one of a kind personality that this breed possesses, it is imperative that pups be raised in the proper manner from day one! It is a full time job, and no breeder can do it properly if they are not commited to raising their litters in a well planned manner. This absolutely CANNOT be done properly by so called breeders that have other jobs that keep them many hours away from home. Raising puppies properly is a full time (+ overtime) endeavour. I myself (Diane) am a full time at home *doggy mom*.

All of our minis that we are owned and loved by, live every day life in the house, our home = their home. We have a fenced in grassy back yard, oodles of various safe and fun toys, always a fresh supply of cool water, and plenty of room for all to run and play in a safe supervised environment! When they are tired of so much fun, we can all be found lounging happily and lazily on the deck. Our minis are also walked regularly in the surrounding neighbourhood and fields, as well as along local shores.

2007 was and always will be a very special year for us, as that was the year that we decided we would no longer dock any puppies' tails, unless there was a genuine medical need. We have never cruelly cropped ears for so many obvious reasons, and now we happily added tails to our list of puppy body parts that we chose to keep intact as nature intended. We had been working towards this goal for several years, and even when we started, more than half our owners were freely choosing to keep their puppies' tails natural as they were meant to be. That made us so proud, to see that people actually took the time to weigh the considerations, and for the most part the pup's health and welfare won out over the *norm* of what, up to then, was expected for the breed in this country. In the years leading up to 2007, we had many complete litters in which all tails were kept natural, and the more that people saw and realized what we were doing and why, the more people we found that simply refused to have their puppies' tails docked. That is what had prompted us to decide to remove any choice about it, regarding our future puppies welfare. We no longer dock puppies' beautiful healthy tails for others' selfish cosmetic reasons.

This is a tremendous accomplishment for us, and we are proud to be able to say that we are truly responsible and ethical breeders, true leaders in promoting what is proven medically best for this breed... for both ears and tails to remain intact as nature intended! We can proudly boast that we are/were (as far as we know) the first and only breeder of purebred Mini Schnauzers in Canada, perhaps even in all of North America, that refuse to crop ears or dock tails on any puppies (unless there is a genuine medical need to dock a tail which we have as yet never seen). We have done this by choice, not by force via the new bylaws that are finally being passed in many provinces that were or are being enacted to not just make a clear statement as to how unethical it is for veterinarians to perform such barbaric needless procedures, but to actually ban them from being able to do so! We have for several years now refused to inflict such needless rituals on this wonderful breed as others still do, who do it in the name of what used to be the norm, or to conform to a show standard written by, of course, show people. We are very proud that one of our dogs, Ykelenstam's Kinetic Kaper, was chosen to represent the breed on the new national anti docking-anticropping poster released across Canada by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association in early 2010. This poster has been several years in the making and has very important information on it, and we are so proud to have been a part of it right from the beginning stages. The poster can be seen on our Breed Info page. :)

Traditionally, people have used the excuse that tails can get injured and require surgery to fix later in life. Statistically it is rare and a ridiculous excuse. To make an analogy, women now have a rising incidence of breast cancer in the general population, so perhaps we should all have our breasts removed at birth, as a preventative measure, *just in case* we might get breast cancer someday. That statement is no more ludicrous than a statement saying that we should dock all puppies tails at birth, *just in case* one or two of those puppies might grow up to have their tail get damaged and need to be surgically fixed or docked at a later date. We as consciencious caring breeders prefer to do the only possible right thing by this wondrous breed, so we breed by and live by the original standard for the breed, from their country of origin (Germany), which is the FCI standard for the Miniature Schnauzer.

We have 7 miniature schnauzers in our special extended family that we are owned and loved by, Remi, Kamara, Phoenix, Xaria, Rumour, Diva, and Tooka. Although Zipper resides with our daughter, we still have exclusive breeding rights to him. To see some schnauzer pictures or read some very valuable information about the breed, socialization, training etc., click on the buttons below. On the linked pages you will find tremendously valuable info about every aspect of life with this amazing breed, mini schnauzers. Hover over the links below to show subtopics included on each link.

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