Yesterday we arranged to meet our trainer just before the start of the town area so Sadie and I walked a familiar route with no support as she felt we now don’t need this on this route.  After meeting up we set off for the park next to the loch for Sadie’s free run.  On previous occasions when I’ve walked through the high street with Sadie she has needed reminded to slow her pace, but yesterday she slowed herself and kept a consistently slower pace as the street was really busy with locals and tourists out enjoying the sunshine.  We used the cafe to ask Sadie to target the button to open the door but didn’t go into the cafe and continued on to the park and it came as no surprise that Sadie knew exactly where she was going!  After doing our usual obedience, we let Sadie “go play” and she again turned back into a puppy zooming around and enjoying the various smells.  Despite how busy the park was with numerous dogs playing, Sadie kept fairly close to my trainer and I which was a huge relief to me but not much of a test of my nerve for my trainer to observe.  For once, we had an uneventful free run with Sadie happily sniffing and exploring on her own and finding two areas of mud to slap her way through – a good opportunity to practice recall with her.

My trainer walked back through the main street with us and left us at our earlier meeting point to walk back home.  I did debate getting the bus home but wanted to gauge how well Sadie would walk home after a free run, i.e. would she have used so much energy running around that the walk home was too long for her to maintain a reasonable walking pace just now while we build her stamina (and mine) up, but apart from the first little section where she dawdled, Sadie walked at her usual guiding pace almost all the way home, and even if she did momentarily slow,  she soon hopped up for me.

My trainer is aiming to call me tomorrow to arrange another meet up later in the week with us further practicing two routes from my workplace on our own in the meantime.