The snow has pretty much melted around town, but there’s still plenty up in the mountains, so this month we tried yet another winter sport: snowshoeing. Birdie accompanied me three times at various snowshoe trails: Telemark Ski Club’s high ridge trail, Kelowna Nordic Center and Crystal Mountain. A few times while following close behind me, she stepped on my big “feet”, but eventually, she figured it out.
Birdie accompanied me for the first time while I donated whole blood in Vernon. She settled nicely on her blanket during the procedure. Well done!
We had lunch at the restaurant at Predator Ridge Resort, which is Birdie’s sponsor. The power was out, but Birdie did not mind having a snooze while we nibbled on cold lunch. She had no problem walking on the grated platform near the front entrance outside.
We took a road trip to Vancouver for an overnight where we picked up PADS Scotia, who is now released. Birdie welcomed Scotia as our house guest for 4 nights, where they practised excellent house and car manners, chilled out at the Barn Owl together and had a play date with PADS Phoebe and a trail walk with PADS Athena.
We had 4 PADS in-person puppy classes this month where we practised various skills and activities such as power steering, perch, walking past another dog in a line, ROLL command, ghost handling, walking past 2 lines of toys on the floor, and to make matters worse, lines of Kleenex, sticks and smelly sneakers! Since Birdie’s age is in the middle of our PADS group of dogs, we have been attending classes with baby pups only OR classes with only the older dogs. The energy sure is different in each class! She does well in both classes and must focus extra hard in the baby pup classes since they are more unpredictable. Here’s a picture from a class of Birdie practising GO IN while Beans is settling on top of the bench after doing a JUMP ON.
We are both getting tired of winter and hope that spring is just around the corner.
Submitted by: Chris Buitinga
