Mimzy's Progress

Well, Mimzy continues to surprise me. Every time I assume she doesn't know something she proves to me she does. I guess I should start trusting my dog. In the past few weeks we've finally really started to mesh, and I'm getting very excited about it! She has moved up to intermediate class at Terry's (it's about time!) because she's finally getting her contacts down, and last Monday night in class she actually did an entire standard course (a hard one) with little difficulty! I plan to enter her in several classes, including standard, pairs, and gamblers, in College Station for the USDAA trial in August. I'm also hoping to finish both Landon and Deets' Performance 1 Dog titles.

This afternoon, Mimzy and I worked on some discrimination, which for you non-agility people is exactly what it sounds like- when there are two obstacles placed right next to eachother (for examble, a tunnel and a jump) you must use your body to tell the dog which one to go to, so you either push to the outside obstacle, or pull to the inside. With Mimzy, because she is so tunnel-focused, it is best for me to give her an RFP (reverse flow pivot), or as Terry likes to call them, a "Reach-In-And-Grab"... where you turn your body into your dog and say their name to get their attention pulled off of the obstacle and onto you. Mimzy is actually really good at this... when I can make my body do what my mouth says.

We have also been working hard on "go", so that she is learning that "go" means to go out in front of me and take whatever obstacle is there. She's finally to the point where I can tell her to "go" on a straight line of jumps and she will dart out in front of me and take the jumps as fast as she can.

The big thing we've been trying to master is the weaves. Mimzy has just gotten to the point where I'm really happy with her 24" weaves, but she seemed to have a lot of difficulty with the smaller-spaced pole, like the 20". She finally demonstrated to me today that she knows how to do them.