2 big things happened today:
Louise stole another dog's toy on the beach, then came right to me and dropped it when I called her! She is a notorious thief and we've been working on this for a few weeks. She's been pretty good, but she's never come instantly without even trying to get me to chase her before.
While playing in the park off-leash, two dogs and their owner walked by to get to their car. The owner opened the doors, one dog hopped in and the other dog went around to the other side of the car (the street side) to get in. Louise ran up to greet them and for some reason I totally froze. She saw the dog going around the other side of the car and followed him! It's a very quiet street, hardly anyone drives there and if they do, it's no more than 30km/hour, but I was so scared. Hysterically, I called her to come and I've never seen her turn and run to me so fast, jumping up in the air and dropping at my feet. Thank god we've trained that recall every day since she was 4 months old. I was shaking the whole way home and telling her what a good girl she is. It was completely my fault. I should have told her to leave it right away, but I had this weird delayed response. Anyway, *this* is why recall is important!