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That feeling, when you first realise that you have your dogs trust, is one of the best feelings, ever. I had that trust with my first ever German Shepherd, Jez, but didn't realise it at the time.
Jez was 8 weeks old when she came to me. From day one, I never had to tell her anything, it was as if she could read my mind. On our walks, people would comment about how well trained she was, always at my side, never showing any signs of aggression to other people or animals. It always made me smile, the only thing I ever taught her, was to stop before crossing a road, that was it, there was no other training.
One day, she was about a year old, we were walking along, on what I call, our big round, she suddenly sat down and refused to carry on walking. The path we were on was in the middle of no where, but one, we frequently used, no matter how many times I said to her 'come along', she didn't budge. I realised, something wasn't right and decided to listen to her and went a different direction. Jez got up and we carried on on our way.
The next day, we went that way again and this time, Jez was happy to go along that path.
To this day, I have no idea why she wouldn't go that way, but I do know, that there was something not quite right. I trusted that girl 99.9% (you can never trust any animal or human a full 100%) and even though it has been years since she died, I miss her, so very much.
When I was still into all that 'training' stuff, I called out a trainer to help with one of my other GSD's aggression problem. I told him about how Jez had been. He said that I had been very lucky to have had a dog like her. I now know, it had nothing, what so ever, to do with luck but with trust.
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