The Amazing Walk

What an amazing walk we took today!
Gladys, Trigger and I set off for our daily hour long walk. Dogs that always bark at us behind fences now no longer frightened Trigger. Instead of freezing, barking and backing up; Trigger was approaching them with a wagging tail!
At one point a pair of Gordon setters broke away from their owner and came running up to us. Gladys of course was happy to see them. Trigger amazed me again by staying calm, wagging his tail and letting them sniff him. No snarking. No guarding behaviors regarding me or Gladys.
Another huge dog approached us without any owner present as we were getting near home. He was a bit scary and very interested in Trigger and luckily pretty much ignored Gladys. Trigger again remained calm and allowed the sniffing. This dog was very obnoxious but obviously big enough to get away with it. We slowly made our way home and the dog even followed us up onto the porch and crowded us against the front door. Trigger did a very mini snark which was completely appropriate given the dog's extremely pushy and rude behavior. Trigger's behavior did not escalate and he went calmly into the house when I opened the door.
These are landmark moments for us and I am very proud of him!
One of the things that Erin, our puppy kindergarten instructor recommended was hand feeding Trigger his kibble to help decrease resource guarding. I'm not sure why that works, but I've been doing this the last two or three days and it is really working. Of course you can't just hand feed one dog. Gladys has found how much more tasty kibbles are when they are individually dispensed by the loving fingers of the mommy.