Animal movement script problems

Hi guys I am using the below script to make it so that the animal runs away but the problem is that it keeps on jumping away which I don’t want so can someone tell me how to make player.GetTransform use only X and Z no Y axis, also the character runs super slow no matter what I change t he run speed to.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class AnimalAI : MonoBehaviour {

	PlayerMove player;
	Transform thisTransform;
	public float minDistance = 40;
	public float runSpeed = 60;

	void Awake() {
		thisTransform = transform;
		thisTransform.position = new Vector3(7, 0, 9);
	}

	void Start() {

		player = GameObject.Find("Jim").GetComponent<PlayerMove>();
	}

	void Update() {


		if(Vector3.Distance(player.GetTransform().position, thisTransform.position) < minDistance) {

			Vector3 direction = thisTransform.position - player.GetTransform ().position;
			direction.Normalize();
			thisTransform.position = Vector3.MoveTowards(thisTransform.position, direction * minDistance, Time.deltaTime * runSpeed);
		}
	}
}

Can someone answer