Henry off Leash

GREAT NEWS! Yesterday I took Henry with my friends Kate and Dana and their dogs Murphy and Kooka on an afternoon hike. Murphy and Kooka are both labs so they are always off leash on hikes and they love running back and forth along the trail. I've never let Henry off leash because I know coonhounds are notoriously terrible with recall but after some training with a vibrating collar and lots of treats, I finally felt confident enough to let Henry have a little bit of freedom. I was so nervous to let him off leash, because if anything ever happened to him I would just die.
But guess what!?
He did fantastic. He stayed right with the pack. He would sprint up the trail a few hundred feet, then turn around and wait or make sure I was  coming. He would sprint out of sight, then a second later come flying back down the trail to the group again. I've never seen him so excited! He rarely was actually on the trail, I could tell he was absolutely loving running free through the woods and I'm SO incredibly proud of him for staying with us. I used the collar once when some dogs were running with their owner down the trail and Henry sprinted off with them (he'd rather be with the runners) but I vibrated the collar and called him and he was easy to call back. I'm so incredibly happy with him!
I'm not sure if he would be the same without the other dogs with us, so I'm still going to err on the side of caution, but this is such a positive sign! I would love to take Henry trail running or mountain biking with me and not have to have him on a leash all the time.
I was always against the idea of the e collar because I thought it was terribly inhumane, but after talking to some other coonhound owners who told me you don't actually have to use the shock, there's also just a vibrating part (which I put on myself and it feels like a cell phone vibrating) I felt better about it. I've only had to use it a few times and Henry has never yelped or expressed pain, it just grabs his attention enough for me to call him back and give him a treat.
Henry has a lot  more loyalty to me than I thought! I loved seeing him run up the trail ahead and then turn around and look to make sure I was coming. He and Murphy had a blast racing each other. Henry just looks so natural in the woods and he's so much happier off leash. I would love to get him a GPS collar so that if he ever did get turned around I wouldn't worry so much about finding him again.
Yesterday I had class all day so I dropped Henry off at Kate's again to hang out with Murphy all day. Kate is a preschool teacher as the school I do my clinicals at so she lives really close to the school. I'm so happy Henry and Murphy get along so well, and I don't feel so bad leaving him if he has a friend to hang out with. After school we all went hiking and then Henry had another slumber party with Murphy last night- AKA I slept on the couch with both dogs.
I can really see an improvement in Henry's behavior with other dogs even in the past week. He's almost perfect with new dogs now - when he met Kooka yesterday he didn't bark or jump, he just casually sniffed and moved on - WOO!