I'm not sure anyone on here knows this, but I want to be a professional dog trainer when I graduate. I love bite sports, but currently, with the dog I have now, we've really been focusing on obedience and some trick training, she is a mutt, mom is a APBT and boxer, dad is a dutch shepard (we live alone in the middle of nowhere and we have no male dogs so no clue where he came from at all, she is now spayed but did unfortunately have an oopsie litter, we ended up keeping 4 of 7 puppies and all are actually really good dogs)it was also a pleasant surprise when I had a DNA test done on her too lol, I was like oh well that explains a lot actually

An extremely long story short, the puppy (Trixie) ends up with parvo, almost dies, gets better, but training (which I typically start as soon as they can properly stand and have their eyes open, gets pushed back until she is almost 5 months, she has at this point never been outside of the house aside from vet appointments and small trips in the car on gas runs or a drive around, so she has never really had an real exposure to the outside world and only basically leash trained.(this dog has shown intelligence since she was a welp, she's seriously one of the smartest dogs we have ever owned and I'm proud to call her mine)

So we really get to work at that point. I'm talking like 3-4 30 minute training sessions a day if I have the time (again this dog is extremely intelligent and picks up new things very quickly) until about 6 months ago when I got real busy and could only do maybe 1 or 2 sessions a day.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I decided that, after 13 months of training and still no extreme exposure to the outside world mind you, I would test her in a quiet place (I'm from Missouri and we have 4 conservation areas within a 20 minute drive from us). I was taking a bit of a gamble, taking her in public for the first time because her 3 sisters are all reactive in public and have had way more exposure than her by insane amounts and can't really leave the house so they can't cause any harm or accidents, but I know my dog and know how much work I have put into her.

We go to the park (my family and my neighbors they have 1 dog and hes a minpin and older than the hills lol decide to go fishing, so we load up and go to the area with a lake), I get out of my car and grab Trixie and my bag, give her a moment to sniff around and get her bearings and then head over to where everyone else is, she does good, stays by my side, we sit there while they all set up to go fishing, once they get in the water, I tell them I'm heading out for a walk. We walk around the lake. It's not huge. She does great and we only pass one person, she pays them no mind at all. We then head back over to my family and the area where we are at has a small field behind us, so we do some training and again, she does AMAZEBALLS We then head out to the hiking trails and she does really good, we run into people and she even allows them to pet her without a reaction. We then hit a stretch where we are the only people for a good 30 minutes so I tie her lead on her harness and drop it, and walk for another 20 minutes with nobody in sight im not holding on to her at all, she doesn't try to run off and when she wanders a bit farther than I would like, she recalls every time when out of nowhere an unleashed dog (not a leash or collar to be seen at all, charges us and starts growling) I recall Trixie and tell the dog to get i have by now taken back up her lead and stop. The dog's owners suddenly appear from nowhere and put a slip lead over their dog who is still growling at me and Trixie, says he never does that and it was an accident and walked off and maybe it was idk, no apology for growling at us or anything. note: im a fan of slip leads in emergency situations, but if you're out in public you need to at least have a collar/harness and leash, I know I keep a slip lead in my bag if I or someone else needs it.

We finished out the trail and ran into 2 more dogs thankfully leashed and extremely well behaved Trixie and the one dog ended up playing with each other for a bit .

Anyway, I felt like I needed to kinda toot my own horn a bit because I have been the only one to handle and train this dog and given that she had never really had any outside interactions with really anything besides what we own and she handled it that well im elated and still really pumped about it

So, finally lmao, the moral of the story, sometimes you have to take a gamble and trust what you know to see where it gets you. I put a lot of trust and faith into Trixie, blindly really because I didn't know what she might do, and in the end it really payed off note: im not saying every dog is a Trixie, she just happens to be a great dog, not every dog is going to be that calm and collected in the situation she was put in with the aggressive dog, ive seen videos where even dogs who have been publicly desensitized since they have been puppies show more reaction than Trixie did.