"At least she's not baying..."

Before last night, I didn't know what the word "baying" meant. In fact, I'd never heard the term. Apparently, it's the annoyingly high-pitched howl of a hound dog.

Let's rewind. After two incident-free puppy classes, me and the husband hopped in the car (giving her the command, "Load up!") for our third private session with Betsy. Betsy is the animal trainer who initially said beagles were nearly impossible to train, then changed her tune to saying Cooper was the smartest, most mellow beagle she'd ever worked with. And it was true.

For the first two weeks, we watched in amazement as she learned to sit, lay down, shake, stay and leave it. My husband and I locked eyes during the second session, and I know we were thinking the same thing. "This is easier than I thought! She's practically trained!"

Well, now let us fast-forward to last Friday. Her third class. When we got there she marched in the room and promptly peed on the floor. It was pretty much all downhill from there. For the next hour, we watched as Cooper refused to do ANYTHING. She wouldn't even sit. I was ready to dropkick her right out of PetSmart when Betsy announced the reason for her misbehavior.

It was a full moon.

I wasn't really aware that the moon phases had any affect on dog behavior, but whatever. I'll take it.

We tried to practice with her at home that weekend, and she did ok, but not as good as in the beginning. So you can understand my dread when it came to going back to class last night. Only last night marked our first class with another dog.

The other dog is a rottweiler named Georgia, and a family with three kids just adopted her a week ago. Her owner said since she joined the family, she's been skiddish, shy and especially scared of the man of the house. We got to class first, and Cooper waltzed in (Betsy wasn't in the room and husband was buying something) so it was just me and our little prized pupil. Right when I let her off the leash, she looked at me, turned around, and squatted.

I almost grabbed the keys and hightailed it right out of there. My dog was NOT going to embarrass me for a second straight week. But my better half came in the room, calmed me down, and helped me clean it up.

Cooper and Georgia got along well, and she actually did just about everything Betsy commanded her to do. Betsy says they'll be able to help each other, and if Cooper can morph into a calm dog like Georgia, I'll throw a party.

 Here she is with her new "Bear Bear" that we were advised to purchase:

So back to the baying... when she and Georgia were playing, Cooper kept letting out the most annoying... well, squeaks. But they sounded... ridiculous. She squeaks quite a bit at home but nothing like this. So I ask Betsy, "Is there any way to stop THAT?!" And she said, "At least she's not baying." I looked at her with a blank expression and then she demonstrated for me.

Point taken.