# Agility stuff- Summer's up another level and Mia is rocking it!



## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

So I'm totally adoring agility these days. I mean... REALLY adoring agility. It's getting to be a ton of fun running both my dogs. 

First off we've had to rearrange classes because there's so few students now. Mia's class got merged with another class so now we've got two mini aussies, an ACD, and a corgi (the malinois dropped). And then Mia. LOL! So the newbies- the ACD owner and the 2nd aussie owner kind of gave me and Mia that look when I walk into the group of _all_ herding breeds with my 6 lb ball of fluff. They were all 'Awww, how much does she weigh? How tall does she jump? She's sooo tiny and cute!' The one lady with the new aussie knew a bit about papillons though and she started talking to the others about how they weren't lapdog like at all and were really smart, tough dogs. She was enamored with Mia the entire night. 

Mia got to run first.  Just a small 3 jumps, dogwalk, then 3 jumps sequence. I walk Mia up and sit her down and then when I released her she ZIPPED off. Completely perfect, the whole thing. I could hear the people behind me laughing and several exclamations about how surprised they were at her. Overall, Mia is just the star of the class. Every time we run we get laughs because Mia is just incredibly intense about everything and she's just 6 lbs. The others can't help but comment about how fast and into it she is. Honestly, it's between her and the smaller of the aussies as far as speed and drive goes. Then the corgi, who is really pretty good too but he had an off day today. I really like that corgi though. The other aussie and the acd just walk everything. 

Mia's still far from perfect. She had a few little bobbles- namely when we were doing tunnel sequences, I can't keep up with her and she burst out the end of the tunnel then proceeded to do zoomies around the tunnel a few times before going over the jump. I also ran over her once and about fell on my face. And it looks like we're going to have to re-work the chute. Chute = scary to her. But overall Mia is zippy and getting really responsive. The biggest thing is the amount of fun she's having these days. 

And Summer's class got cancelled because we were the only people wanting to be in it. So... my instructor told me to just bring her to her competition level class. She thinks Summer will hold her own in there. I hope I don't look TOO stupid in there. The class is my instructor's puppy, a very highly titled 12 year old BC, and a 2 year old sheltie that is competing. That sheltie rocks and makes me want another sheltie so bad. I think I'm going to ask her where she got him from...

I'm going to miss training here honestly when we move. Ash (Redyre's Marcia/Cali's mom) has given me the name of a place in OKC so we have a place to go, but I'm going to miss some of these people and dogs I've been training with for a while now. 

Anyways, just for those who care.


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## RaeganW (Jul 14, 2009)

You'll be back there though, right? Next semester?

Congratulations on Summer and Mia! Do you think you'll trial with Summer?

There was a Papillon at my dog park yesterday named Mia! These perfect strangers couldn't understand why I was flipping out. She wasn't A Mia though, no interest in tennis balls.


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

RaeganW said:


> You'll be back there though, right? Next semester?


Nope! I'm done in december! 



> Congratulations on Summer and Mia! Do you think you'll trial with Summer?


I originally didn't want to but I think I will try to trial both of them. Summer's not that old and while she's not terribly drivey overall, I think she's pretty drivey and fast for a tiny dog. She's really reliable and good and the more we work, the more into it she gets and the faster she's getting. I think we could get somewhere trialing her if I wanted to. 



> There was a Papillon at my dog park yesterday named Mia! These perfect strangers couldn't understand why I was flipping out. She wasn't A Mia though, no interest in tennis balls.


That's cause Mia is one of a kind.  She's converting some of the people in class to like papillons, I think. they were all shocked by how into it she gets.


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## RaeganW (Jul 14, 2009)

Laurelin said:


> Nope! I'm done in december!


I'm incredibly jealous, I have another year and a half yet. Congratulations!



> That's cause Mia is one of a kind.  She's converting some of the people in class to like papillons, I think. they were all shocked by how into it she gets.


People tell me to get a Papillon all the time at trials. They're really taking off as a performance breed. I heard somewhere about one breeder who has stopped counting how many of her puppies have gotten OTCHs and now only counts the ones she titles herself. The number was somewhere in the twenties. I can't remember where I heard it though, it was some kind of audio...


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

RaeganW said:


> I'm incredibly jealous, I have another year and a half yet. Congratulations!
> 
> 
> 
> People tell me to get a Papillon all the time at trials. They're really taking off as a performance breed. I heard somewhere about one breeder who has stopped counting how many of her puppies have gotten OTCHs and now only counts the ones she titles herself. The number was somewhere in the twenties. I can't remember where I heard it though, it was some kind of audio...


Yeah they're definitely starting to get a name for themselves for sure! I still run into a lot of people in classes though that kind of give me the 'are you serious?" look when they see me come up with my little tiny dogs. But more and more there's people that have seen them run before and come up to me saying how cool a little breed they are and how smart and fast, etc. So I hope they do take off more in a performance direction. I'd much rather that than end up with them becoming generic lapdog types. 

Mia's breeder has quite a few dogs with a lot of agility titles ( a few MACHs). I don't think she has an OTCH yet. Mia's siblings have gone on to live with agilty trainers and things like that. I think Mia could be that good if only her handler were a little more competent. 

I'm wondering if the breeder they were talking about is Denzel Papillons.... I covet Denzel's dogs. There's quite a few breeders out there in papillons producing good performance dogs.

ETA: So far of my trainers, my first decided after Summer that her next dog was going to be a papillon (she has a BC and a mini poodle already), then my second has said she's not a toy dog person but she loves my two and if she were to get a toy breed, it'd definitely be a pap. She told me she'd steal Mia.


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## Michiyo-Fir (Jul 25, 2009)

Eeeee I'd love to see videos or pictures if you ever get any! and congrats, it seems like both girls are doing wonderfully!

All this talk of Papillons makes me want another one! But I also want something a bit bigger for my next dog. Why must there be so many gorgeous breeds in the world?!?

How do you manage to find so much time to train/take your dogs to classes while still in school? I'm finding myself really struggling with making more time for Nia and going to school


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

I want another papillon too! Specifically another one from Mia's breeder. The more I'm around other dogs, the more I just love them. They have such a great personality and so much heart and humor. I eventually want a bigger dog but life just wouldn't be the same without a few papillons running around. I'll ALWAYS have at least 2 papillons for sure. They have my heart. 

I really don't have much of a problem getting classes in. We train 3 nights a week for 1 1/2 each night. Basically I have no social life though since my friends all graduated and moved away. So I pretty much sleep, go to class, do homework, then spend the evening training dogs and going to the park. 

You should really try to get Nia into something. It's so fun when you have one of the best dogs in the class and your dog is a fraction of the size of everyone else's.


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## Michiyo-Fir (Jul 25, 2009)

I really really want to get Nia into an obedience class and an agility class. Problem is my classes are 9-6 mon/wed/fri. Tues/Thurs/Sat I have work either 9-5 or 2-9:30, Sundays I have work half the time and I get that day off half the time. It doesn't help at all that I can't drive....

I want a Braylor's dog or even Denzel dog as well  Basically what's stopping me is that I don't ever want to have 3 dogs at once, so if I do get another Pap I can't get another dog until one of my dogs passes on. So I figured one big and one small is a good combo. Though I do love watching Paps zooming around at crazy speeds and only matched up by each other


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## LazyGRanch713 (Jul 22, 2009)

All this pap talk is NOT helping the issue of the girl sitting at the shelter!! 
Seriously, though, I'm glad you're having such a great time in agility Laurelin  Tag and I have hit a slump, I think being so busy at work has dug into our practice time and at the end of the day I just wanna SIT.


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

I swear, agility is like crack! I can't get enough of it and I'm already doing about 4.5 hours a week. lol

Summer had her first advanced class today. 

Anyways, glad we went! Overall she did really well and sure enough did hold her own in a class of dogs that were actually competing. We were far from the worst team there, actually, which pleased me. We need to keep working on the chute (both my dogs have problems with the chute) and we need to buy some weaves to work on at home I think. She still pops out every now and then.

But overall good and she was so happy to be back into things. All the errors were mine. I had one brilliant moment where I was supposed to go A-frame, jump, tunnel and I went A-frame, jump, then proceeded on to the three jumps in front of me before I realized I was just making the course up. Oops. First run we ran into each other in a pinwheel, but the next two runs I was able to send her out and then do a nice rear cross behind her. She's getting faster but still slows down on the dogwalk quite a bit to where I have to slow down to keep from running off without her.

All in all, good time, I think.

There were coyotes howling a field over all night though. Was kind of eerie.


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## RaeganW (Jul 14, 2009)

What's their issue with the chute? Is it pushing through the fabric or running on it? Somewhere I saw some method with a shower curtain in a doorway to get them used to brushing under something.


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

Yeah, that's mostly it. Summer got tangled in a chute a while back and that's set us back quite a bit.


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## RaeganW (Jul 14, 2009)

I haven't heard of any solutions for running on it, but I did hear of one thing where you hang a shower curtain just low enough so that the dogs have to brush under it to pass through the doorway and gradually lower it until its dragging on the ground and they have to actively push through it.


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## Kyllobernese (Feb 5, 2008)

Kiska had a bad experience her first trial with pouring down rain and a heavy chute to push through. She eventually got through but it put her off. I found if I kept talking to her after she went into the chute, encouraging her as I was moving along it, she did much better and at her last trial she ran through, no problem.


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