First she set her larger dog pointed away from us behind a shed and then I walked Frodo around the shed on a long line so he could approach how he wanted to. As soon as he saw the dog he froze and tensed up like he normally does when we see dogs out on walks. Then he approached, head down and his weight shifted to his rear when he got to sniffing range. Once he figured out it wasn't real he walked up and, being Frodo, tried to pee on it. That's my boy!

The second scene we tried started with Silke having a small schnauzer dog on a leash and Frodo on a 6ft leash as well. She walked out from behind the shed with it and Frodo reacted in pretty much the same way as with the first dog. When she moved the dog toward him as if it was going to sniff Frodo, Frodo moved away and continued to move away in response to all of the other dog's advances. The same thing happened when we tried the larger dog in the same scenario.

I know we have to take into account the fact that Frodo knows Silke, and that he realized that the other dogs weren't actually dogs, but all in all he responded how I expected him to. He *can* be introduced to strange dogs, the problem comes in that he does not know how to handle another dog past the initial greeting. I can let him sniff a dog and if I interrupt and ask him to come back to me he is fine. If I don't interrupt after a few seconds into the sniff he becomes defensive.

In the coming weeks we may be able to stage greetings with some of the bombproof daycare dogs. Should be interesting.

In other news, Frodo and I have a crate on loan from Sue as we are attending a Nosework seminar on Oct. 9th and dogs must be able to sit quietly in the crate when not being worked with. Oy vey.

I tried to tell Silke that I should just leave Frodo home and audit, but she scolded me and said I need to give Frodo more credit! Which I try and do but it's hard!!

So we are starting Relaxation Protocol in the crate and will hopefully be able to take it on the road before Oct 9th. Cross your fingers for us! He was crated last agility practice, and he was very relaxed, he just barks when I move away in a "how dare you shut me in here and go have fun, let me out!" sort of way. When I was sitting near him he'd lie his head down and just chill.

Tonight we have Tricks class (it is either the last or next to last class, which is sad) and there are empty crates around the room so I am going to work on sticking him in a crate when Silke is talking.

Bah.

We have been seeing a ton of dogs lately on walks and he has been an absolute gem. He sees them and I say his name and he turns and gets his peanut butter squeeze. I'd like him to be looking at me without me having to say his name, but beggars can't be choosers and it's not taking effort for him to turn away from the other dog. He gets some time with the peanut butter and we can pick up and be on our way with the dog still well in sight.

We have also been able to walk much further, but I am not sure if that is do to cooler weather or what. Whatever it is I am enjoying it immensely.

Thursday night we went back to Sue's and did more focus work. Mainly going into the practice area and keeping the dog engaged for a set amount of time. Frodo, by far, was the star of this show. Even when the set amount of time was up he was more than happy to keep focused on me and didn't care about the environment nearly as much as the other dogs. There was a straight tunnel, a J tunnel, and a curved tunnel on the course, and he did all of those beautifully. Lots of speed and he absolutely loved them!

Tomorrow we are going to a different location to practice, so it will be a good test of how he is doing in a strange place with strange dogs. I am both excited and nervous. I know they will probably have more of a course set up than Frodo and I are used to (the tunnels Thursday night weren't sequenced or supposed to be sequenced, since we are working on focus and foundation and not sequencing) but we will probably still just work on focus and rewarding with tunnels.

In other news, next weekend I am going to learn how to show groom Bedlington terriers and hopefully will also be at the corgi Nationals for one of the days!

In other (and more positive) news...*drumroll*... Frodo and I have started agility!! He seems to think it is the best thing ever and I have had so much fun in just two sessions that you can consider me hooked!

Now, we aren't taking real classes in the pay $xx.xx for 6 weeks sense. We are training with a friend of mine, Silke, and on occasion some other agility folks. I think it's good for me because I don't feel the pressure to do really well that I might in lessons. I trust my friend and her training methods/mentalities 100% with Frodo.

Anyway, here is a little breakdown of the first two lessons and how they went.

Agility Lesson 1 -

Course: http://www.flickr.com/photos/izfro/4948883241/sizes/m/in/set-72157624733797005/

(gotta love my Paint skillz)

Yes, they are all tunnels, and we only used the two on the right (straight tunnels). Frodo didn't really understand at first that he was supposed to go *through* the tunnel, so we made one very compact and Silke stood at one end and I stood at the other and we just treated him for running through and gradually widening it. He didn't show the least bit of hesitation, his confidence over this past summer has *really* improved! It makes me so happy that he doesn't worry so much anymore :D

After we had that tunnel down and I had him running through it from all four positions (left and right lead on both ends) we tried to tie it together with the tunnel in front of that one. Didn't work so well as he would run through the first tunnel and dodge the second one to follow me. If we ran from the second tunnel to the first tunnel we had better success, probably because he was reinforced so much more for going through that first tunnel (the one we gradually made longer for him).

One of the problems we were running into was the Frodo wouldn't take his eyes off of me! Great while we are working with other dogs in the area, but not so great when he is supposed to be looking ahead at tunnels! :p

On one last note for the first night, everyone was impressed at how FAST he can run, probably because he acts so lazy in class, haha!

Agility Lesson 2 -

Course: http://www.flickr.com/photos/izfro/4964884908/sizes/m/in/set-72157624733797005/

Yes, just tunnels again.

Yesterday morning we went over for another lesson, and this time Frodo had the whole place to himself! :p

My friend (I'm going to start referring to her as Sue, since that is her name and I will probably be talking about her a lot!) started off my giving me 2 stuffed toys with openings where you can stuff treats, and a food tube, since we needed a better method of rewarding than throwing pieces of treats and waiting for Frodo to find them! I put some high value treats in the toy and let Frodo sniff it and that was the end of him! He thought it was the best tug toy ever invented...ever!

We did three short rounds of training.

Round one was to go out and get Frodo through the tunnel from all four ways (left and right lead on each opening), for both tunnels. This was also the first time he had done a curved tunnel, though the tunnel had quite a gentle curve. No sweat for him! We did this with lots of tugging and treat giving, then off the course.

Round two was restrain holds. The first time we did this he went through the tunnel so fast that I didn't even have time to get the toy out of my pocket and throw it! He was scary fast! We did it again, with the same results. Then, on the third time when Sue reached for his harness he turned and started barking at her, which I wasn't expecting but probably should have. Sue had me put a leash on him and she held that for one more restrain hold and then off the course.

While Frodo rested again we talked about his triggers and how all of the work we have been doing lately has been about being calm. Calm in new situations, calm around other dogs, calm calm calm. And with agility, we are allowing him to get up and "high," and that is probably why he reacted at Sue. That the restrain holds and runs are emotional, which is why they work, because they frustrate the dog. She really didn't seem worried about it, but said that we would do restraint work with a parachute rope from now on.

Round three was just for me to go out and have Frodo focused on me for 1 minute. I could reward however much I wanted and I could do whatever with the tunnels that I wanted, but had to keep his focus. We did quite well! Only had one little slip up, and that is because Frodo smelled one of the treats that had dropped out of the toy after he tugged a hole through it earlier. Other than that he was with me the whole time.

Overall I think things are going well. A few things bother me (like that he snarked at Sue), but there are also a ton of good things I am seeing, like even though he is very "on," he stays right with me and listens to me, every time I asked him to drop the tug he did without a moment hesitation, and most of all he seems to be having a blast out there!

Thursday night is our next get together, so we shall see how it goes.