Schnoodle Doodle 101: The Doodle That Came With a Beard and Eyebrows

Most doodles look like a teddy bear. The Schnoodle looks like a teddy bear with opinions about your posture. It is a Schnauzer crossed with a Poodle, and it comes with something no other doodle has quite pulled off: a beard, a pair of serious eyebrows, and the expression of a small retired professor.

What makes a schnoodle doodle different

A schnoodle doodle gets its look from the Schnauzer side, and the name gives it away. Schnauzer comes from the German word Schnauze, meaning snout or muzzle, and the breed's whiskered muzzle is exactly what it was named for. Cross that with a Poodle and you get:

• The beard. Often more beard than the dog can keep clean. Breakfast lives in it for a while afterward.
• The eyebrows. Long and expressive, ideal for a dog who wants you to know it is concerned.
• The coat. Anywhere from wiry Schnauzer texture to soft Poodle curls, sometimes both on the same dog.
• The colors. Black, grey, silver, white, apricot, brown and parti are all common.

Three sizes, one personality

Schnauzers come in three sizes, miniature, standard and giant, and so do Poodles, so Schnoodles range from small dogs that fit under an airline seat to big ones well past 60 pounds. The personality holds steady across all of them: clever, alert, very attached to their people, and convinced the mail carrier is an ongoing security matter. Schnauzers started out as farm dogs and ratters, so many Schnoodles keep the watchdog habit of announcing every visitor, every squirrel and every suspicious leaf.

The beard gets its due on the Schnoodle T'sup Dood tee, a detailed line drawing of a shaggy, whiskered face with the greeting T'sup Dood lettered underneath, on washed blue.

Line art is the honest way to draw a Schnoodle, because the face is all texture: every scruffy hair in the beard, the eyebrows sitting low and serious over the eyes. It reads as a doodle from across the room and as a Schnoodle the moment someone leans in. The greeting is the joke. A dog who looks like a professor saying "t'sup" is the Schnoodle experience in one shirt.

Looking after the beard

A practical note for new owners: the beard needs more care than the rest of the dog. Wipe it after meals, comb it a few times a week, and if the dripping water-bowl look is wearing on you, ask the groomer for a shorter, tidier beard. Many owners also have the groomer keep the hair trimmed away from the eyes, so those famous eyebrows frame the face instead of poking it. Our post on what to say to your groomer helps you ask for the cut you actually want.

And for the dog who wants you to know he is also hungry, the Schnoodle Eating Ramen tee shows a black and grey Schnoodle with chopsticks, slurping noodles from a bowl topped with a soft-boiled egg, on washed blue.

A Schnoodle eating noodles is a pun we could not resist, and the beard makes it funnier. Anyone who has watched their Schnoodle walk back from the water bowl knows exactly what that beard would look like after a bowl of ramen.

Both shirts make easy gifts for the Schnoodle person in your life, who is not hard to spot. Their phone is mostly close-ups of a beard, and they can tell you, at length, which groomer finally got the eyebrows right. They will wear it to the dog park, where at least one other Schnoodle owner will notice it immediately and come over to compare beards.

For the bearded doodle at your house

The Schnoodle collection has every design we make for them, from everyday shirts to holiday ones. Pick the one that looks like the face currently judging you from the couch.