We have a beautiful soccer field at the top of our street.  One side of the field has a path leading to the street, one side has wooded trails leading down into a larger park and the other two sides have wooded trails with houses bordering them.

A lot of people walk their dogs up in the woods an many of them walk their dogs off-leash.  Many times I’ve walked Sampson and Delilah up there.  Off-leash.

Sampson is usually pretty good off-leash, although since his surgery I haven’t let him walk the trail off-leash, call it over-protective, but I want to make sure any encounters with dogs will be safe.

Delilah on the other hand is a crap shoot.  She will go for months and months sticking close beside me and then POOF!  one day she will run off on me. 

The worse part of her running off is she goes to people’s houses scrounging for food.  One time she actually went into someone’s open garage.  

The last time she did it, it was like she was in a zone.  I could see her and I called and called, but she was munching on something in the yard and just could hear me.

It freaks me out because I worry that someone could hurt her, so since the last time (March 2013) she hasn’t been off-leash at the park.

I’ve been working with her on sticking close to me, and even though she’s on leash, I call her to me a couple of times during our walk and reward her for returning.

I’ve also let her off leash as we are returning from our walks and making our way into the yard, working hard at keeping her attention focused on me and rewarding her for doing a great job.

Saturday I decided to take a risk and see how she did in the field off-leash.  

I didn’t let her get too far.  I called her back to me three or four times and after a couple of successful minutes, I clipped her back up.

Will I ever let her run off-leash as we walk thru the woods?  I doubt it.  But there is hope that she can be trusted for short periods of time.