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.