On our walk last night there was another opportunity for Conrad to demonstrate how far he has come. Our normal walk route takes us around a fenced ball field. I normally don't use it for off-leashing because there are signs plastered all over it saying "no dogs" and I don't want to be That Person, but other people in the neighborhood sometimes do. Not a lot, but sometimes. Anyway, as soon as we came up to the field I could see someone was in it, but I didn't see a dog. People use it to jog around, or to practice various sports, so I just assumed that's what was going on, but Conrad seemed unusually interested in the person. Normal adult-typed people doing normal adult-typed activities, especially at long distances like this normally don't bother Conrad at all so I thought that was strange.

So the dogs are sniffing (this is our Free Sniffins portion of the walk) and peeing and pooping and what not when all of a sudden this totally gorgeous to-die-for long haired GSD comes jogging by, inside the fence, in the ball field. Oh! Duh. That's what Conrad was so interested in. Anyway, the dog going by so close to us (probably no more than 10 feet) made Conrad do a "WTF!" but we just moved backwards a few feet and Conrad was able to come back to Earth and do some targeting. At the point where I almost always have them both sit and focus on me for a bit, I was still able to get him to do that. The guy in the field was running his dog through obedience and had him in a long distance down as we walked by on the other side (we go around 2 sides of the field) and Conrad was interested but fairly calm and I let him look at the other dog instead of keeping all eyes on me and he did just great.

And then, in keeping with tradition, as we were working with one trigger, another appears. Two middle school boys running and screaming at each other and mock-hitting each other in the playground. Again, Conrad was interested but was still able to respond to his attention cues and target and all that good stuff and we were able to just walk right on by with no whining and no lunging and no bad behavior at all!

Good Boy!