Marvel's training hike

The first time I walked with Marvel I had sore arms, back, and shoulders afterwards, even though she really wasn't too bad just walking on a slip leash. I knew I needed to get her trained on a Gentle Leader, for my sake and also to make her more adoptable. Yesterday I got Erika to fit one on her but I only walked her enough to know that she was going to fight it.

I was dreading taking her out to walk today just because I wasn't looking forward to dealing with a dog fighting the equipment the whole way, pawing at it constantly, rubbing their head on the ground in an attempt to remove it, or doing the whole alligator death roll. She seemed capable to doing any or all of those things. 

Once again I was wrong and I couldn't be more happy to be so wrong. I put the Gentle Leader on her when she got into the crate so she was at least used to wearing it by the time we got up to the park. She did resist being led around by the nose a bit at first, but she soon decided that it was a small price to pay for a walk in the woods. She walked beautifully by my side for the entire four miles of our walk. I had resigned myself to just doing a short walk thinking that both of us would hate it, but she settled down and we both enjoyed it so we kept going. It really helped me control her when we encountered bikers and other hikers too. 

She walked in this position, right next to me, the entire way.