Does anyone reading this forum have any knowledge of Schnauzers?  I know there is giant and miniture so there must be something inbetween.  Do you know if they are persistent barkers?  If so, can they be trained to 'tone it down'?  Anything anyone could tell me, good or bad, I would welcome.

>I know there is giant and miniture so there must be something inbetween.

The three sizes are Giant Schnauzer, Schnauzer and Miniature Schnauzer. :-)

None of the Schnauzers I have come across have been barkers, if that's any help.

The minis tend to be vocal, in my experience.

Several of the minis I know are pretty yappy. OTOH I also know a few that do fantastic obedience work, so they're clearly trainable dogs and could surely be trained to tone it down somewhat. The obedience ones aren't yappy....

The 'something in between' is the standard schnauzer. It's basically the original one, before the other 2 sizes came along. Generally, the minis do have a reputation to be more 'barky' than the other two sizes, but I don't find them to be persistent barkers when they're all benched together at shows or out in the public. In fact, my first mini didn't 'speak' at all in the first few months of coming to his new home! Then again... my new youngster loves the sound of his own voice and even wakes the others up with his extremely, exaggerated loud yawns!