So of course because Marlowe did so great in class last week, this week was like the Coonhound Agility Comedy Hour. Good thing the class is so low pressure and our trainer is such a hoot. So starting now, it's time to put the obstacles on verbal cue. Everyone else seems to have already done that but, er, no one told me I should. I know that sounds lame but in our level 1 class the trainer was so adamant that we not really say anything to the dogs, that I just figured when it was time to start using verbal cues someone would tell me. It was pretty funny though to see Marlowe planted about 2 inches in front of the tunnel opening and just staring at me blankly as I said "Tunnel! Ok! Go! Tunnel!" Yikes. 

 As I was leaving, the level 1 obedience class was letting out and the owner of the center was talking to one of the clients from that class who was wondering what breed Marlowe was. She goes, "He's a coonhound! She does agility with him!" And was just kind of like, er, yes, but only because I am completely insane.

Last night on our walk we had a close encounter of the hoofed kind (deer) and the dogs' reactions were pretty telling (and impressive). Both are very highly prey driven but the difference is that Conrad has no idea what to do when he feels that drive kick in. He freaks out. He gets all conflicted about what to do and how he's feeling and how he knows he's supposed to be behaving--I try to help him out but doing so while he's in drive is a lot just about management.  Marlowe, meanwhile, has 200 years of selective breeding plus 2 years of prior training behind him, and he knows exactly what to do. TELL EVERYONE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD! DEER! DEER! RIGHT HERE! EVERYONE LOOK! DEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRR!!!!! He doesn't freak out or lunge or have a panic attack like Conrad does sometimes. He is quite clear on what his job is and is very business-like about it. And man, let me tell you, this dog's voice is just gorgeous. I let him stand there and bay for a while and just basked in the sound. It echoed and rang and was like a bell. Amazing. So different from his much more irritating "around the house" vocalizations (the "Conrad I demand you play with me this instant" bark and the "Someone immediately let me in/out" arf).

Conrad has had some ups and downs. There was an incident last week that really bummed me out, but then like two days later he did some amazing stuff that was totally the opposite of how he'd behaved before. So....who knows. I am getting resigned that I'll never be able to truly 100% trust him to not react. All I can do is keep him safe and get him as close to 99% as I can. I'm thinking of acclimating him to a muzzle (don't worry folks, he hasn't bitten anyone, it would just be "in case", especially if he continues to have back problems and needs to be worked on by vets while in pain).

Currently his back problems have flared up again and I'm sort of wondering if that maybe contributed to last week's issues. But we can always tell when his back is hurting--he slows down, he's a lot more ginger getting up and down, and he starts choosing to lay down in the corners of rooms, so the wall supports his back. This means that I think I'll have to back off teaching him his new trick: "bow". He's been doing so well with it too and I realized that I've been so focused on his reactivity that I've forgotten to just have fun with him and do some silly shaping. I felt bad especially because at first it was like he'd forgotten how to play that game completely, but he soon picked it back up again. If I had wanted to, I could have clicked every single thing he did while he was trying to figure out how to get back to "bow" from laying down (he often laws down "sphinx style" and the bow part is just half of his process for laying down, so it took him a while to figure out that "bow" is different from just "do a sphinx down"). It was all adorable. Cross paws, cross paws the other way (that had me rolling), shuffle backwards, roll on to one hip, roll on to the other hip, put head down....stand back up, bow CLICK! (or rather DING! as we are now fully using the Clicker+ and Conrad's "click" is the dinging sound).

 
I'll have to come up with some more back-friendly trick to work on in the mean time.