Differ

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(12/15/2019)

Differ came into my life when the world shut down in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A friend of mine posted a photo of her on Facebook as part of a group of puppies that needed a foster home for a rescue organization. Her name was Princess, and I couldn’t sleep that night because I kept thinking about her. The following morning, I filled out an application to foster her.

My thought was that I could do training on her, and that would help her with her future forever home. I was developing an online class for performance sport foundation skills then. These skills help the dog learn how to focus and gather helpful life skills. I planned to train Differ through the various skills rather than using one of my experienced dogs to demonstrate skills they already had.

While training Differ and documenting the progress through videos, I realized this little dog was special. She was a determined tugger and a quick learner. We both enjoyed the training, and I loved training a different type, size, and personality in a dog. She got along great with the Border Collies and Snuffy, the cat. So, I became a foster failure for a Chihuahua x Poodle mixy-mix.

Because Differ was trained through my “glue skills” foundation training, she progressed quickly through the stages of agility training. She is a small dog, weighing 8 pounds and 11 inches at the withers. That puts her into the AKC 12 inch jump height and the UKI/USDAA 8 inch jump height class. She competed in the AKC 12 inch class until she was at five double Q’s in Master. Then I moved her to the Preferred 8 inch class because she would occasionally knock a bar which would (obviously} hurt. We are both much happier running in the 8 inch class.

This little girl is a spicy package of fun. She “drives” through the course like my Border Collies with nice distance, focus forward, and commitment skills. Her start line is lovely, and her start position is a bow (she told me that a bow was much more efficient and easier to hold than a down or a sit). She makes me smile whenever we train or compete. 

Besides training and trialing in agility, I’m having fun teaching her competitive heeling. Because of her size and that she is always cold, I probably won’t ever compete with her. She loves the training, though.

I look forward to many more years of training and competing with Differ.