dog walk event

Today my dog and I participated in a fundraising dog walk. We did it last year for the first time and met this nice woman and her collie. We walked the entire way with our 2 shy dogs shoulder to shoulder with eachother keeping one another secure. This year we took a while to find a dog who we could walk with and finally found a nice springer spaniel named oliver who kept with my dog and they behaved nicely. I had fitted my dog with his gentle leader simply because he never gets snippy with dogs he doesn't like while wearing it and I knew today he would be exposed to a lot of untrained dogs with owners who weren't able to read signals and may not even be watching their dogs interact and I wanted a good shot at my dog behaving the best he could. I hate "tools" and like to rely on our relationship for good behavior but, sometimes you need a guarantee.
He had a blast. He played and sniffed many many dogs. He was nipped by a 6 inch chiuaua who was understandably nervous and almost bitten by 2 other dogs but, I read the vertical tail of one well enough to back off and the other had the big "back off" eyes and of course he was like "calm down,I mean no harm" and pushed her too much so she snapped at him luckily out of range. I love reading signals now that I know most of them. It is a great affirmation to my knowledge to be able to know how a dog is thinking. Timing is so important with dogs reactions and when you read the signals it helps your reaction speed to respond before anything gets elevated.
I love my dog most when we are out doing something and he looks at me as if to say "I am doing good right now, right mom?" or "thank you for this, I love you mom" that little look lets me know I am a good human/dog mom. It actually makes me proud of me, that makes me happy.
We were home by like 1030 am and he napped most of the day except a short stint outback when I had him hang out in the yard while I pulled weeds. now he is crashed out again. You know what they say: a tired dog is a good dog.