Today when I took Zoe out I practiced a recall with her (which she did wonderfully), then I went out towards the mailbox. I hear someone shout, “Emma come!!” I look up and see the golden lab from across the street come barelling across their front lawn and the road towards us. Now I know this dog from experience, though I never knew her name - she’s loose quite often unfortunately, but she’s a big chicken. She sometimes comes a few feet into our front yard to sniff all the Zeeke-and-Zoe-smells, but then runs off when Zeeke barks through the window. If I’m outside she’ll stay at least 20 feet away, just watching. So when I saw her running towards us it didn’t worry me at all. She did indeed stop about 10 feet away, only to creep up another 5 feet. One of her teenaged owners came running as well. Emma was watching Zoe, but is too shy to actually go up to her. So I clucked at her and when she came my way I gently snagged her collar and handed her over to her owner (whom she was evading, because of course owner=going home, which is no fun!)

And that whole time, with a strange dog and a strange person coming towards us, Zoe never even hit the end of the leash! She was on the flexi so she had quite a bit of distance, and she was back a ways, but she didn’t freak out, she didn’t try running, she didn’t hide. She wasn’t even plastered to the ground. She was just standing there, watching. I am SO proud of my baby!!