A dog never too old to learn tricks

Natalie Fisher and her beagle Mia gave a performance to remember at the 2017 Westminster Dog Show.

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Natalie Fisher and beagle Mia know first-hand this myth isn’t true.

After the Medford residents’ performance at the the 4th Masters Agility Championship at the 2017 Westminster Dog Show was made famous by Mia’s quick and humorous distractions, which included cleaning herself and posing for a camera, the public fell in love with her quirky demeanor. Yet, what many don’t realize from watching the viral YouTube video, “Mia the distracted beagle,” is, from age to breed, Mia had to overcome many obstacles just to get to that level of competition.

When Fisher’s family first adopted Mia at 8-weeks-old from a breeder of hunting dogs in Pemberton, she was originally given to her older brother Alex. Yet, when the bond between Fisher and Mia became clear, her brother gifted the dog to her.

However, it was not until Mia was 5 years old that Fisher first began training her in agility. According to Susan Bintliff, agility training director for competition agility at the Pinelands Dog Training Center, dogs can be trained in agility at any age, but it is ideal to start them in foundation classes as puppies. From there, the dogs are able to become increasingly competition-ready as they gradually move on to the agility classes and progress. Even with a late start, Mia, who is now 10 years old, eventually began to build her agility skill set and successfully run the courses.

“I’ve always been competitive and knew I’d like to compete with [Mia], however training at first did not go so well,” Fisher said. “Any dog from the hunting breed can be a challenge to train. They naturally want to smell everything and usually have their noses to the ground.”

She added the pair trained outside, which made things even more difficult. It even got to the point where, after a year-and-a-half of training Mia, Fisher stopped working with her and started with a new dog.

“Mia quickly became very upset, and would cry at the door when I left for class without her,” Fisher said. “About a year later, I decided to give her another try, and when I did she was a totally different dog. Now at class she runs her little heart out and acts as though she loves it.” Mia’s newfound focus eventually led Fisher to taking her to weekly classes at the Pinelands Dog Training Center in Medford. From here, Mia continued to improve and went on to compete in Florida in December at the junior agility competition, where she earned third place in the jumpers class.

Ultimately, to qualify to enter the Westminster Agility competition, Mia had to earn her master’s titles in both the standard and jumpers classes by attaining a perfect score 10 times, which she did.

On the day of the Westminster competition, Fisher admitted she was already a little nervous because before the run she could tell, Mia was getting upset by the excessive noise. Additionally, each dog had to be put on a platform before the camera before entering the ring, adding to Mia’s overwhelmed state.

Advancing it to final round of the competition, Fisher recalls feeling grateful to have made it as far as they did. So then, when Mia began getting distracted by the audience, Fisher said she wasn’t mad in the slightest; instead she just tried getting her dog to focus and complete the course.

“Overall, she did well under such pressure, with the lights, cameras and cheering from the spectators,” Fisher said. “I was pleased that she was able to get herself focused on me a couple of times to actually run the course.”

Despite Mia’s distractions and 16 faults in total, Fisher said the feedback she has received based on her dog’s performance has been “truly unbelieveable.” While the she plans to continue training Mia, attending training seminars and working toward a Master Agility Champion title, she’ll never forget her experience at the 2017 Westminster Dog Show.

“I wouldn’t change anything about my performance. I ran the course just as I needed to, unfortunately sometimes a dog is going to do exactly what it wants to do, and that is something that you can’t control,” Fisher said. “You can only continue to train and hope for the best.