This past weekend we took Keeda to the river for some dog exercise. She likes the river much more than the beach as it’s calmer (she’s a bit apprehensive of waves) and the water isn’t nearly as salty if it gets in her mouth when she’s going for a stick. Keeda trudged into that water, happy as a clam, and started chasing after sticks as we threw them to her.

About halfway into our visit, two women with three gorgeous dogs came to the stretch of beach we were on. Two of the dogs were enormous! One was obviously a Rottweiler cross and the third was a little puppy staffy mix, still in her awkward stages. They were all adorable (I especially loved the awkward puppy, she was too shy to go into the water as the other two swam out far after the huge stick their owners were throwing for them).

The three dogs and Keeda went up to each other to sniff. Keeda was obviously wary of the big Rottweiler cross, I kept a close eye on her. I saw her tail tucking between her legs slightly and when the big dog snapped at her silently Keeda jumped away, but then emitted a bit of a bare-tooth growl. The bigger dog immediately backed off and walked away and that was the end of the encounter – just a regular dog-meets-dog interaction. What surprised me was what happened after!

Keeda is a very well behaved and trained dog, but no dog is perfect and she tends to be very excitable when she meets other dogs. If she’s off lead she will often run at another dog to play and her recall isn’t great at all when she’s preoccupied by another dog. I’ve been working with her to correct this potentially dangerous habit. Well, after sniffing the other dogs for a few minutes, Keeda promptly came up to where we were sitting, plomped herself down in front of our mat, and completely ignored the other dogs! This was amazing – normally she would bolt straight at a dog whether it looks like it wants to play or not. This time she was more than happy to stick with us and chase after sticks instead of tails.

The other dogs came up to her a few times to sniff and she was very friendly and polite, but didn’t run after them when they retreated back to their own games. The little puppy bolted at her and ran circles around her a few times and Keeda played with her a bit, but was very gentle and careful (before she would have just forgotten that the other dog is…well…alive and would often be a bit too rough with her playmates).

As we were leaving I overheard one woman make a comment to the other: “Now that’s a well behaved dog.”

You guys have no idea how proud I was . Keeda got called a well behaved dog! She’s been called well behaved and well trained before, but never about her interactions with other dogs. It feels great to make progress.