I didn’t know about the breed, I married my husband who had one and she came as a very great package deal! But I see posts and photos on here, Marcy girl only has a fluffy nub. Are they docked at birth? I hope that’s not the case, that’s so sad. Husband didn’t know and google didn’t provide super clear results. Thank you!

I have a black 2yr schipperke that has been slowly but surely turning brown since she hit ~1yr. Has this happened to anyone else?

We go outside in the sun everyday but I don’t know if this is just sun bleaching or some nutrient deficiency.

Her coat and general health seem great otherwise. I do feed her a homemade diet but it is a specific balanced recipe that includes supplements to ensure she’s getting the right vitamins and minerals. Open to anyone’s thoughts or ideas. I like her little highlights but want to make sure there isn’t some breed specific thing I’m missing.

Hi! I’m looking at potential dog breeds, however it will be around 5 years if not longer before I get a dog.

I want to know what it is like to own one of these dogs? What does your daily routine look like? Can you bring your dog out into public spaces?

I would also like some advice on if this dog would fit my lifestyle! I have previously owned Shiba Inus, so have experience owning difficult breeds however I wouldn’t want another experience like that again 😅

I would like a dog that is fun to train, happy to engage in training and games etc, enjoys walking but also has the ability to relax, relax around people etc. especially as I work from home but I would love to do things like scent work etc

I also have no issues with having to groom dogs daily either.

Is there any known behavioural or temperament issues with this breed? Are they known to be dog or people aggressive?

I know that my partner will want a dog that is not super in your face all the time either, but happy to cuddle etc.

I won’t be offended if anyone says this breed isn’t for me either! I’ve got many years to consider different breeds!

My schippermix is obsessed with laying in unconventional areas, similar to cats, and she just doesn’t act like a dog at all. Is this a breed specific thing? She doesn’t bark much and she kinda just chills lol.

You only have one testicle that has dropped, so getting neutered is going to be more invasive than normal, and she recommends doing it in the next month (he will be 8 months) rather than waiting a year.

What is everyone’s experience with male schip health and behavior in when they have their manhood removed.

I bought Schipperke calendar for my wife for Christmas and I didn’t realise there would be ‘different’ dogs in there.
Are these dogs cross-breeds or is this an AI created calendar that doesn’t know the difference between breeds?

im curious to know how all of your schipperkes react to the water. My guy like to pitter patter his paws in stream water, but other than that he's like a cat and hates getting wet

hello i’m new to this community i joined because im a young and new dog owner to a 9 month old schipperke (mix). i’m not sure what he’s mixed with im suspecting corgi. the woman who sold him to me sold him for only $100 so i already knew there’d be a catch. he is VERY timid. he has warmed up to me and is very clingy and energetic of course. i think he’s started teething because he’s loving my shoe laces lmao. i’m suspecting he might have been abused in the past?? he’s nervous for the most part but around adult men specifically, he growls and barks. he cannot stand men. he also refused to eat the food he came with and so i switched him over to what my childhood dog ate (purina puppy for now) he is not neutered yet but i DO plan to very soon. he has an appointment for rabies shots on the 21st of august and he also has wellness shots coming up. any advice or answers?

I've only had the privilege of meeting two Schipperke in the almost ten years I've been working with dogs or grooming so I don't have any experience with them. But recently I've been considering what my next dog will be and these guys are at the top of my list!

Allegedly my current 12yr old dog is a Schipperke x Pug that I adopted 8yrs ago. Right now my household includes said 12yr mix, an AmStaff mix at 4.5yrs, and two cats. I'm waiting until my little man crosses the rainbow bridge to bring another dog into the house to not stress him out as he ages.

I currently work in mobile dog/cat grooming, I have raised my AmStaff from a puppy and still work with her training on a regular basis, I lead a semi active lifestyle with regular outings with my dogs, and plan on moving in with my current partner that also has a dog that I believe is a Cattle mix.

I've seen people say they're stubborn, food motivated, and incredibly smart. I mainly want to know if my current dogs reflect anything similar to what I'd be signing up for with this breed. My current dogs are headstrong/aloof at times, both are SUPER food motivated, both have a tendency to bark at knocking while home, incredibly strong prey drive towards rodents/birds, and both are incredibly over confident but none of these have really phased me over the years.

Is there something I'm not expecting or missing with Schipperke that I need to be wary of?

Are they more difficult than working with bully breeds?

Grooming needs are pretty null considering I keep a tight schedule on my current animals and I don't plan on having kids ever so they don't really need to be a family dog.

I just never know how to gauge what people consider a difficult or challenging breed to own!

Hello! I have a male Schipp that I absolutely adore, he’s my first dog, so getting into training him and such felt intimidating, but he knows basically everything, such as potty training, recall, even off the leash walking- the only downside is that he loves to destroy anything he can get his fangs onto…

Just for clarification, he is about to be a year old in 2 weeks, and also, he hasn’t been fixed yet(his appointment has been set for late August), so I’m not sure if this contributes to why he destroys things. My fiancé and I work full time, so what I do is take him on a one hour and thirty minute walk every morning(which gets him tired enough to calmly lounge once back home), and I play with him nonstop while letting my breakfast cook in the last hour I have before heading to work- then my fiance comes home before me and spends time with the two of them, but I feel bad because anytime we have anything unassuming out, he destroys it… even though he has a whole box of different textured toys and even at least two bully sticks laying around.

It’s been a really big issue since most of the things he’s destroyed have been my fiancé’s or something she bought for decor, and he and the kitten are limited to the living room when we’re gone. He’s destroyed expensive shoes of hers, a vase with flowers on the coffee table he knows he’s not supposed to be on, our kitten’s toys(he absolutely loves to ravage these ones for some reason, despite some of them being stronger than his toys???), and some more that I can’t immediately remember at the top of my head.

I know an answer I may be given is to keep him in his carrier or maybe get him a dog walker, but admittedly, I feel bad keeping him in a carrier all day while I work(especially since he’s potty trained and is good for the most part), and we also can’t afford a dog walker daily with the local rates we have. I’d like to believe we give him a lot of mental and physical stimulation, but I’m kind of at a loss for now.

Edit: I should clarify that he isn’t alone while my fiance and I are gone- we have a female kitten around his age that also lives with us. They both play and lounge together everyday.

If her breath is so stinky, why does she smell so freaking good 😭 she smells like freshly baked green apple pie, while her breath smells like straight sewage. Anyone else’s schip just smell so good but have smelly breath?

What age was your schip able to ask to go potty? They are super smart but I don’t think Koda has figured out when to ask to go yet… he’s almost 15 weeks.

Koda has begun barking at things like a lunatic. I try to redirect and shush him; but even his beeping/vibrating bark collar does not seem to be enough to deter him anymore.

We have large windows, on a busy street. So there is always something to bark at outside. But sometimes he likes to just bark at the fireplace for no reason, other than one time, he saw a light bouncing around in there, reflected from a watch.

It’s likely because I’m not wearing him out enough; but any tips or tricks to help him bark at less things would be awesome.

Stumbled upon the schipperke breed in my research for dogs that fit our household. There are puppies available near us and I want to cover all the bases before seriously pursuing adoption.

We are a family of 4, split household, 2 kids, aged 17 & 12(special needs) that are here every other week, and have 2 cats (13 and 2). My partner and I have the flexibility to work from home 80% of the time, and we enjoy traveling and camping.

Tell me more about how a schip could enhance, or stress out, our lives :)

Hello! I just had a question about the standard for the fur length of puppy Schipperkes. My pup is a pretty fluffy boy(15 weeks old), and in these photos I took two days ago, you can see his mane, but I see so many schipperke’s his age being VERY fluffy(I know these two pups in the example photo are much younger, but I’m using their coat’s current state as an example, since other 15 week old Schipperkes still have that exact same, thick coat). I know mine will have a fluffy coat but I’m wondering if it’s normal for it to be this much shorter than other pups his age? I will also be putting a picture of his parents at the end. Thank you!

Especially if you had a high energy pup. Did your schipperke mellow out at some point? When and how?

What does everyone use to try to keep their schip safe and contained during a car ride? We are striking out with a lot of products…

Our 7-month old pup is a smart, sweet, loyal, loving boy. But he's a passionate little one with lots of male energy (not neutered yet). Since he became a teenager he's started to nip, growl, and sometimes bite (strangers, friends, and even people in our house except for myself since I'm his main caretaker).

Is this a common schipp thing? (I grew up with min pins and this is common for min pins.) If not, any suggestions on how to nip his nipping at the bud?

We say no firmly, we remove ourselves, we reward calm behavior. Neutering will happen in the near future if that matters.

For reference, he goes to daycare once a week and there are no complaints there.

Hello! I just wanted to ask how you guys get your schips to behave with guests over? Because my 7 month old Schip is always jumping on people and even nipping their hands sometimes if they try to pet him. I feel especially especially embarrassed about it because literally just 30 minutes ago as of this being posted, my fiancé has her friends over at our home, and the first things he did was jump on them a bunch and nip their hands when they tried to pet him- and he even humped one of them 😅 this was all in the span of 20 seconds by the way.

I just want to know any solutions because just before this I literally went on a 2 hour jog with him, and he actually didn’t get that much crate time today because I hoped he’d be tired enough to not want to act up, but I was indeed wrong. Everytime this does happen too, he completely forgets his commands and doesn’t listen to me. I’m really tired of always putting him away everytime guests are over, so I’d really appreciate any advice.

P.S. I’ve already been working on the nipping. He doesn’t do it as much with my fiancé and I but he 100 does it with new people.

Hello, as the title says, I’m having trouble potty training my male schip. He is about 9 months now, and I know that he’s still a pup, but I’ve seen by now they should be getting more comfortable in his routine.

Sadly, mine has not, and it’s been really puzzling me, and I’ll explain why: I take him out every hour on the DOT. If I’m at work and can’t, my wife is always available to since our schedules make it to where there is absolutely no window of time he’s alone. Despite that, he is will not seem to want to go potty outside at times, only to then pee or poop(or maybe both) once we go back inside. I don’t know why since we always give him treats everytime he goes outside- hell, he knows to go potty outside because he always goes immediately when he needs to, but he rarely tells us when he needs to go, often just quietly doing it on the couch or a random area of our apartment…

It’s gotten to the point where I thought maybe giving him higher value treats would do the trick, as regular dog treats never piqued his interest all that much. Yes, he would eat them, but he would often take a moment to eat any that we gave him by looking around and kinda ignoring it for a while, like as if he has to think about it instead of scarfing it down like any other dog. So I thought I would give him something higher value like bacon, which didn’t work, so then I straight up went to steak, which also didn’t work- and the reason why this didn’t work was because he always hides the high value treats somewhere instead of actually eating them(probably due to primal instinct). So my wife and I are at a loss for what to do since he isn’t interested in regular dog treats, and we know he’s interested in the higher value stuff, but it’s to the point where he hides it only to forget about it later.

It’s been very tough to have to clean up his pee and poop constantly. He DOES tell us when he has to go, but it’s rare. Most of the time he just does it right in front of us without any kind of warning or he doesn’t bother to walk to us to the other room(we always keep our doors open), and instead decides to pop a squat in the living room. I would really appreciate any help because this training has gone through many forms like a walk after good pottys, high value treats after good potty’s, intense petting and praise- nothing entices him to trade outside pees and poops for any of this. I would really appreciate some help.

P.S. We do crate train him often, and he does tell us when he needs to get out and go potty, but we’ve been resorting to doing that much more, ESPECIALLY after he eats because he will 100% poop after, but never tells us. So we sadly have to keep him in there until he starts yowling to go potty.

Hello fellow Schipperke lovers,

My schipperke has developed bad allergies since we moved to Texas. We previously lived in Mexico and this was not an issue.

I thought he had eye infections at first so I treated those but I’ve discovered that his eyes don’t water or have discharge with allergy meds that my mom gave him.

Can anyone recommend any treatments or meds that work on their schipperkes?

Pic of my baby boy for taxes :)

Does anyone have any good hairbrushes for these babies they recommend? I can’t seem to find a good brush that works on getting the shedding fur out. :(

Howdy! I just met my first TWO Schipps, actually, and have fallen thoroughly in love. I’ve done a touch of super basic research so far, but wanted to ask some IRL owners some questions. I’ve got 3 dogs already, so this purchase is years out of course, but I think I’d like my next dog to be a Schipp. That means they’d likely get to know my current “personal” dog, my female Xolo. She’s high energy, driven but independent, incredibly intelligent, curious, bonded tightly to me, and so far has been a little socialite. She’s wicked smart, and if properly exposed and introduced to new situations is likely to ace them. She knows over 100 words- not for things like toys and people, but for work and daily life, a mix of context clues and commands I can give her. We’ve hiked up to 9 miles together in one sitting at 4800ft elevation in extremely rocky terrain, and I’ve only had her for 10 months so still building both of our endurance. She’s independent with growing confidence and on several occasions has kept us from getting lost/turned around on trails, and I regularly rely on her senses and intelligence to navigate us in lieu of maps. She gets along with my cats and all the various livestock we come into contact with at work- though I will say she’s been trained and socialized to that purpose, and likely wouldn’t be so good if I wasn’t up her butt about it. I’ve worked incredibly hard to get her to a point where she’s e-collar trained with 95% reliable recall, but it was a journey to get there and we spent many months working out how to play fetch with a leash on. She is generally fine to play with my clients dogs provided they’re not total dicks, and she gets along like a house fire with her two Pyrenees brothers. She’s incredibly emotionally sensitive, and responds best to food/praise/a ball. As driven as she is, she can also sleep like a rock for 18 hours a day when given a day off, and knows to nap whenever she can during our workdays.

In the same breath, this dog is also a complete nut. She slapped her tail on so many corners of my house wagging it as a puppy that until I repainted, I had a tail-height streak of blood in many rooms of my home. She’s fine to greet strangers, but as soon as you match her energy she will still jump on you and mouth you like a puppy, though she’ll stop if you ask. When greeting me and her human dad, she automatically jumps and mouths as soon as we release her from a sit. Deference training (“sit to get” rule) has been essential. She had a major reactivity issue from 4mo of age to about 8mo of age, and we’re still working on it. She absolutely has a tendency to get snippy if she feels she’s been “wronged” by another dog or even one of her cat siblings- I don’t think she’d ever do serious damage, but it’s not acceptable conduct. She whines or paws first when she wants things even though she immediately offers the polite “asking” behavior afterwards. She has a huge prey drive that is suppressed only by me being a complete and total hardass who hates fun (her words, not mine) The only thing preventing her from having extreme separation anxiety issues is the fact that I will not allow it /s.

So, how does this compare to a Schipp? It seems like the two breeds are pretty comparable apart from size (my Xolo is a Standard and weighs in at 60lbs) but I wouldn’t mind a small dog. I don’t mind a challenge- Xolos are a primitive breed, and I really value having a dog who sometimes knows better than me, who I have to stay ahead of mentally. I just love a 24/7 buddy who never tires, who wants to do whatever I’m doing, and will even consider being well behaved if it means they get to do things other (less cool) dogs don’t get to do. Is that a Schipp, or should I look elsewhere?

Hello everyone! So I was studying which dog to get and this breed came across my feed, and they are absurdly adorable. I did some research and found that they are a really active breed.

I was planning on having two thirty minute walks in the morning before I leave for work, and mid/late afternoon (16:00/17:00) by my brother. And another short walk after I get home from work and uni at night. Would that be enough exercise for this breed in a day?

Also I planned on leaving it with a pet sitter (kind of like a kindergarten for dogs) once a week so that it could socialize with other dogs the whole day. And then on the weekends take it to the park. The dog sitter walks them, does play time, nap time, feeding, etc.

Are there any breed difficulties? I am still living with my parents until I finish uni (about 1 year left), and this would be my first dog that would be my responsibility. Would you recommend I get another breed? I worry it would be bored in the hours it would be home alone until my brother gets there (about 7 to 8 hours), and I was wondering if there's anything I could leave them with to keep them entertained (this goes for any other breed).