Well done, Cinnamon!!!

Cinnamon did a great job this weekend!! Not in Agility though, but she helped find a missing cat.

When we came back from our morning walk, a couple were looking inside the gate of our next-door neighbour's house, which I was looking after as the owners of the house were away. So, I asked if they were visiting the owners of the house. Then, the husband said that their cat had been hit by a car and their neighbour had seen the cat getting into the property right after the accident. We looked around together after I took Cookie and Cinnamon home, as the cat would be scared of the dogs. But we couldn't find him at that time.

In the evening just before sunset I went over to the property again, this time with Cinnamon. I was thinking she might be able to sniff out the cat, as she has such a good nose that she often starts tracking the scent of a dog that has passed by before we see it. As soon as she entered the backyard, she started sniffing around a bush beside a deck. She even tried to climb over the bush to poke into under the deck. It was an unusual behaviour for her. I had never seen her do that in the neighbour's backyard, which she had been to many times. However, we still couldn't find the cat.

And first thing in the next morning I heard the owners of the missing cat calling his name, Oscar. So, I went out and looked for the cat again together with them. The red eyes of the wife showed that she hadn't had much sleep. In the afternoon, the wife visited us and said she wanted to have a look under the deck later with a torch after her husband came back from work, because she remembered I had told her that Cinnamon was keenly sniffing around that area. Actually, later it turned out that, behind the bush, there was the only path to get in under the deck and to under the house, where we at first thought was unreachable from outside without opening a locked door to the basement.

And, yes, the couple finally found their cat under the house!! At that time I wasn't with them, as I didn't want to disturb their search. According to the cat owners, when the cat was found, he seemed to have a sore back but looked all right otherwise.

Cinnamon did a great job, didn't she!?


*****

On the weekend we visited an official measurer of the New Zealand Agility Committee to have Cinnamon measured. In order to enter Championships as Midi or Mini dogs, dogs must be measured by an official measurer and get a certificate for the height class.



It was not easy to measure Cinnamon, as she was scared of the measuring instrument. But, luring her with a dog biscuit, the measurer managed to measure her height at the shoulder bone. Her measurement was 375mm, which falls into the Mini category. Now we are ready to enter Championships!!