To the Park!

Tia is currently being walked on a longline again, as her recall hasn't been particularly good lately. I have been avoiding places where we're likely to run into other dogs for the last week or so because I wasn't sure if she'd still be reactive on the longline but decided to take the plunge and go to the park today, obviously not at peak time but at a time when she'd likely see a few dogs but not get totally overwhelmed.

On the way to the park, we came across a small Labrador puppy, I didn't have time to cross the road so we just stepped into a space by a parked car and Tia had a little growl but no lunging or barking, so that wasn't too bad.
Once in the park, we saw a Lurcher who we see in there regularly, a Spaniel and a Dalmation and also a small puppy. The first three, she spotted from a distance and had absolutely no reaction at all, which is great. I already knew that she is less reactive in grassy areas than on pavements, but she really couldn't have cared less about the other dogs so I'm very happy with that outcome.

Unfortunately her meeting with the small puppy didn't go so well. The puppy ran towards us and I decided to unclip her lead because even though she didn't react at a distance, I thought it was likely that she would with another dog in her face. I think I must not have unclipped the lead fast enough, because she was tense when the puppy ran over and after a split second sniff and the start of playing, Tia stood over the puppy and growled. I couldn't have apologised enough to the owner (who didn't really mind, actually), I'd never have let her off lead if I thought for a minute that she might scare the puppy, but there is a first time for everything and that was the first time she's ever growled at a small dog while off lead. I really hope it was a one off and that there was something in the puppy's body language or behaviour that I missed, but I'll have to be more careful for a while. Not because I think she'll hurt another dog physically, but it only takes one bad experience to create a nervous dog (I saw the puppy playing with aforementioned Spaniel straight after so fortunately that wasn't the case in this instance) and I'd hate to be responsible for someone having to put up with what I have. I'll also add that we passed the same puppy several times after this incident once Tia was back on the longline, and she didn't react at all again.

But apart from the one bad meeting, her total disinterest and lack of worry about the other dogs is a huge step in the right direction and overall I'm feeling quite proud of her today.

The other thing I'll briefly mention today, are the steps we are or will be taking to overcome the reactivity.
I started using a "watch me" command in the beginning to take her attention away from the other dog and keep her focus on me but she outsmarted me and now recognises "watch me" as "there's going to be another dog in a minute" and immediately starts to look around for the other dog upon me giving the command so that's become rather useless now.
I'm replacing this with keeping a squeaker in my pocket and treating her for looking at me after I squeak the squeaker, but this time I'm not using it around other dogs until it's a fully ingrained behaviour. I think I started using "watch me" around the trigger before it was a solid enough command and also failed to use it enough when there was no reason to, so that's why it went the way it did. I also don't plan to use the squeaker as frequently as I did the "watch me", I hope for it to be more of a management/last resort kind of thing.

For better ways of dealing with reactivity than simply trying to distract Tia, I have kindly been recommended this website, by somebody who has had great results with their own reactive dog using these methods - BAT Steps for Reactivity. I'm currently working on making sure I fully understand this information before attempting anything in the real world and I will update on how this is going when I've begun some of the work.
Thankyou for reading!