373. How the Schnauzer got his yellow whiskers?

Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore






Surprises come if you are observant. The white Miniature Schnauzer X Jack Russell came for his annual vaccination. He was the big sized over 14 inch tall Schnauzer. No trace of Jack Russell blood.

"Let me know if he is healthy," the young couple in their late twenties said.

He was healthy. Only that he had bright deep yellow strands of "whiskers" on both sides of his nose and even his front paws had a few strands.

"Is he licking his urine?" I asked the gentleman.

"His urine is dark yellow, but I don't see him doing it."

A mystery. The left and right half of the face had almost identical amount of yellow whiskers. How did the dog do it? It is as if he had make up.

"A few months after being bleached white by the groomer, the yellow colour returns," the gentleman said. "The groomer does not know what is the cause."

Is there a clue somewhere? How could he get symmetrical yellow markings on the face?

It certainly looked like yellow urine stains.

"He does rub his face on our dark brown sofa," the lady said.

"Is it fabric and has the colour faded after his rubbing?"

"It is a fabric sofa but the colour does not get rubbed off" the lady said.

He is a very clean dog. An unusual habit of pooping 5 times per day if the owner is at work but twice during weekends when the owner is home. He poops outside the newspapers but pees onto the papers.

"Could he be eating stools and getting his whiskers stained?"

"No," the owners were confident that he did not have coprophagia.

He does not lift his leg to pee unlike other male dogs. He pees 4 times per day when he is home alone but 2 times when he is with us during weekends. He will just go to the newspapers to pee in private.

"He pees dark yellow urine but we don't think he plays with his urine. He may flick off the newspaper but not dirty himself," the lady said.

Any clues from his pee elimination habit? Apparently none. I still think it was urine stain. If there is a close circuit video camera, we may know the answer. But it was not practical to suggest.

Could it be genetic? Bright yellow whiskers sprout due to his Jack Russell inheritance? But Jack Russells don't have yellow whiskers. However, mixed breeds are hard to rule out such a possibility. I did not mention this.

You see, the roots of the yellow whisker hair are white. So, the owners did not think that the colours were inborn.

"Any chew toys that stain his whiskers?" I asked. "Even then, how do the whiskers on both sides get more or less equally stained?"

"No," the owners said.

"Well," the lady laughed. "There is a brown hot dog chew toy which is now in bits."

Could this hot dog be the culprit? The owners said they will e-mail to me a picture of this hot dog. If the hot dog is removed, will the whiskers go back to white colour?

My hypothesis is that he is stained by his urine when he is home alone. The colour really looks so much like the urine stains I had seen in other puppies and sick dogs. How did he do it? Did he do it on purpose? Or is it his habit of chewing the colours from the brown and yellow hot dog toy? Why then are his lower lips and chin white?

The mystery still continues.