Mika's first walk to the pond in 2011

Mika and I went for a very nice walk to the pond yesterday. It's the first time we went this year because it's too far for Mika to walk to in the winter (Mika often doesn't even want to step out of the house in the winter!), but now that it seems like spring is upon us, I can start taking her for longer walks again.

We surprisingly didn't see any other dogs at the pond. The pond is a great place to work on her reactivity because we almost always see at least a couple of dogs, but today we didn't see any. We did see two dogs on the way home, though -- and both were her highest-level triggers; big black dogs!

The first was a black bouvier. I don't think Mika had ever seen a bouvier before, but I anticipated a big reaction from her because they're a bit similar-looking to Briards, which is Mika's absolute biggest trigger (luckily we rarely see them). When I saw it, I crossed to the other side of the road with Mika and told her to sit-stay. She did, and I fed her cheese as the bouvier passed by. She was SO good!!! She didn't even get tense, but rather stayed relaxed (well, as relaxed as Mika can be when she's getting treats) and focused on me.

The second dog we saw was a black pit bull mix, almost certainly with some lab in it as well; it had the body of a lab and the head of a pittie. I saw this dog at the last minute and had to pick Mika up so that we could move away fast enough. Mika saw it right after I picked her up and she *almost* went over threshold, but she contained herself as she gnawed on a piece of cheese -- what a good girl -- and when I put her down, about 20 feet away from the other dog, she sit-stayed and didn't bark once.

Very proud of my awesome girl!!

P.S. Next time we go to the pond, I'll try to bring my camera and take photos. The pond would make for some beautiful shots.