On Thursday, October 14, Mika celebrated her sixth birthday. I couldn't spend as much time with her as I would have liked because I had to finish two lab write-ups and study for a big test. But we did go for a nice walk at a park we haven't been to in a while (the same one we went to last year on her birthday).
In the evening, Mika got a meal of her usual Tollden Farms raw beef and veggie patty, but also mixed in with some canned pumpkin and cooked lamb. Needless to say, she LOVED it.
(The fuzzy thing next to her left paw is her old favourite Monkey toy, which disappeared for a while and was just recently found again!)
For presents, Mika got a new flexi-leash (so that she doesn't have the share our other one with Wall-e) and organic chicken necks from The Urban Carnivore, which we haven't bought in a couple months.
My little dog is now middle-aged. The more I hear about all the health problems many schnauzers suffer from as they age, the more I appreciate the time I have with my own healthy girl.
Happy birthday Mika :)
Both dogs had a great time at the fun match yesterday. I ran Mika in two Masters Standard runs and one Steeplechase, and Wall-e in one Steeplechase.
Mika had some great independence in our first run, the Standard; I accidentally sent her to an off-course tunnel that was 20 feet away! My handling of this course wasn't the greatest, though. There was a section of the course where I had to RC over the first jump of a 180. The first time we tried it, I pulled her towards me instead of pushing her away over the jump. The second time, I managed to push her away, but she didn't know where she was going after the jump and knocked the bar. But oh well, we had fun and I rewarded Mika a lot during the run.
My rear cross at that 180 was much better in our second run (same course as our first run). She jumped the apex of the AF in this run! We haven't trained the AF in about a month, so I doubted that she would jump it.
Next was Wall-e's turn at Steeplechase; "finally," he says! He'd been waiting hours to run and by the time it was his turn, he was ready to burst.
I ran Wall-e at 6". He had tons of fun careening around the little jump/tunnel sequences (we couldn't run the full course because the AF and weaves are too stressful on the rear legs). I rewarded him with a nice "party mix" of Polish sausage, cheese, and sweet potato.
Last run of the day was Steeplechase with Mika. She had a beautiful AF, jumping the apex again, but much less awkwardly this time! At the end of the run I started sending Mika over the wrong jumps, haha, but she went and started taking the right ones, which made me realize my mistake. If this were a trial, she would have saved the day!
New animals are always popping up at the farmhouse my parents are renovating! They saw three moose there earlier this week. My mom got a photo of these two:
I am still super happy about this trial because, although we didn't Q, Mika actually BARKED ON COURSE!!! She has NEVER done this before. Understand that Mika is a very vocal dog; she barks at people, she barks at dogs, she barks when she's doing tricks, she barks before agility, she barks after agility...you get the picture...but she has never actually barked during a run or sequence. At this trial we did Snooker for the first time and the least thing I expected was to hear Mika barking during the run!! This is absolutely a great thing because Mika only barks when she's excited and "high," so hearing her bark during our first Snooker runs means that she's happy and not stressing, and is just plain having fun.
I had planned a flowing course for our first run, but we got whistled off after about 15 seconds for accidentally taking two obstacles-of-choice in a row. (Mika was pleasantly surprised to get her jackpot after only 15 seconds in the ring).
In our second run, Mika entered the weaves wrong, so after she finished them I had her do them in the opposite direction because the first time hadn't counted. But then I didn't have a plan for what to do after that, so I just sent her over a red jump we'd already taken to stop the run. This was Mika's first time doing 24"-spaced weaves at a trial and her footwork was great considering!
Again, awesome trial because I'm uber happy about Mika barking during both of the runs!!
In the evening, Mika got a meal of her usual Tollden Farms raw beef and veggie patty, but also mixed in with some canned pumpkin and cooked lamb. Needless to say, she LOVED it.
(The fuzzy thing next to her left paw is her old favourite Monkey toy, which disappeared for a while and was just recently found again!)
