More fun with Steeler

On Saturday I headed north to my parents house for the afternoon. My sister was down with the kids and my brother had come down from ME so we could have a birthday party for Ryan, my nephew. Little did I know that my brother had a trip planned to the state park that is a couple of miles from my parents house. So the 5 of us and 2 dogs (my brother has a lab, Luke) piled into the car and off we went. Now, normally this is not someplace that I would take Steeler. It is full of off leash dogs and that normally sends me running in the other direction. But I let my brother talk me into it. Actually he didn't say much - just gave me that look that says "get over it". I kept Steeler on leash and he did really well. The worst part is getting past the first pond since that is where dogs tend to congregate and play. We let Luke play in the water for a few minutes and since Steeler is not a water dog we just stayed off to the side and watched. Steeler did really well with a little chi leaving his owner to come check him out ... really didn't seem all that bothered by it. It helped a lot that I don't generally freak out about smaller dogs. We continued on our way and passed a few more dogs without incident. Then we took a side trail and I let Steeler just drag the line for a while. We only had one problem with an aussie sneaking up behind us that I kind of paniced on. I couldn't quite get Steeler's leash shortened up in time - but nothing major happened. Steeler barked at the intruder and the intruder turned and ran back to their owner. I was happy that Steeler went back to just being a dog rather than scanning the environment looking for the other dogs. We had a pleasant walk for most of the remainder of our walk. Well if you don't count Uncle David telling Ryan that we were lost in the woods. One other dog came to visit us towards the end - a larger mix that looked like maybe some whippet in him. I just stuffed dried salmon at Steeler and moved away and Steeler was fine! I was really pleased with Steeler and even more pleased with myself, that I could get through that walk without having a panic attack about all the loose dogs. I am still not sure if I should have taken Steeler to the park or not, but I am happy that everything went just fine. Today we had a quiet day of just hanging around the house, getting ready for a busy week ahead. :-)