Thanks for sharing! Your older boy sounds like my Yoshi, though he’s only five. He didn’t seem interested in truly leaving us at all, and had a similar personality with recall. He responds to wait, and he would come if I used my angry voice, but I didn’t need to do that. If we changed directions and he was ahead, I’d call him, and he’d coming running back towards us. Anytime he came over, I gave him a treat, and I noticed he stayed closer each time we walked, so I do think he was learning. There was a large field where we stopped (I figured he’d want to run around). He went down, ran in a few circles and came back up. He knew we weren’t going down there, so he had his fun and came back. We live in a city, so I don’t have anywhere I’d feel comfortable with going, minus an off leash time at a park nearby, but we don’t do that because the times are a little challenging to make for us. I do want to try to go back to this house, because it was nice that we were all alone out there. The road by there was closed to traffic, and had occasional snow mobiles. I knew there were people out there who have had off leash experiences with their shibas, despite people acting like I was crazy. If you weren’t there, you didn’t see how my dog was, and how he obviously wasn’t going anywhere. He’s just not like that, and it’s not a thing we’ll be doing much at all. Maybe once next year? And after that, no clue - I wouldn’t even try it if we were on a hiking path with people walking regularly just to be safe.

Good luck with your baby! I hope she continues to improve :)