Playing outside with Brooke and Jay

Jay demonstrating cross-country skiing for Mika. She is a very attentive student but was a little nervous about actually going with him around the yard. So, we went for a long walk on the frozen lake and through the snow drifts. After our walk we went over to Coon's to play with Ebb, their golden retriever. Mika was exhausted by 1:00 and took naps for the rest of the day. Having Brooke and Jay home for the weekend is really tiring on her. We had a lot of fun tiring her out and even more fun watching her dreaming on the rug in the early evening. Here are a few highlights of our walk:

Mika smells something good...

Dig, dig, dig...


Mika bounding through the deep stuff.

This is one happy puppy :)

Pictures of the day

Mika the moviestar

I thought it would be cool to just start taping Mika to see if she would do anything funny. She licked the camera and stared at me for awhile. Then I captured this...



She rarely sits when we say "sit", but she will sit every time we say "wait". Not bad for only 8 weeks old. :) She rings her bells that are hanging on the door every time she wants to go outside. If we don't move fast enough she really goes crazy. We are working on getting that on tape too.

Little Things

Mika and I wanted to say hello to all. We wish we could be at the Christmas party this evening.

All the books that I have read say that puppies shouldn't start obedience training until at least 12 weeks. I can't tell whether she is bored or just often tired. She understands wait(sitting) before going through doors and before coming out of her crate, she fetches and most of the time brings it back, and last night started to understand that if she rings the bell that we ring each time we take her outside, we'll open the door. As she is sleeping with her head on my leg, I think I'll just let her be a puppy.

After a few days of trying, she figured out how to get under the futon. I don't know what she was after, but she was pretty happy when she was under there. After this Giardia clears, she will be ready to tackle the world.

Giardia, not just for backpackers...

Dr. Kurt called this morning and informed us that Mika has giardia and that it is contagious to humans. Hopefully we will not develop giardia in the next couple of weeks.

We took her to the vet in town and got some pills. She should be okay in about a week, but that does mean that we can't bring her to Manitowoc to meet the extended family this weekend as planned. Everyone will just have to wait until Christmas...