My Shopping Buddy

Since I've taken over the training (and bonding) of Frankie, I've primarily taken him out to only two places: Petsmart and another pet store called Pet Connection, which is a small pet store with reptiles, rodents, fish and birds. Both of these stores are chock full of distractions, smells, sights and sounds.

Frankie is highly distracted at these places, and unfortunately I found myself getting very frustrated with him. And as we all know, these frustrations go right down the leash to the dog. It's just not a good training environment to start with.

Finally a lightbulb went off in my head. Why am I making this so hard? Why am I starting my training with the most difficult places? Because I'm a dummybell, that's why! Doy!

So, yesterday, I took Frankie to a nice, normal WalMart. And it was great!

He pulled consistently, his turns were spot-on, his down/stays were solid. The overall experience was one of happiness and fun for both of us. And I actually was able to do some training, rather than just correcting bad behavior the whole time like I have to do in the pet stores.

The only bad thing about this session was that it turned out to be so much fun, I wound up actually shopping and spending money. I bought clothes, perfume, and some groceries.

Shopping.... Bummer!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Awwww.... sounds cute.
Interesting blog- it was fun to read!
8:19 AM
Don said…
I've been training Kodi for about 5 years now, she now has 17 live finds for missing people, and she is, to this day challenged, when we go to pet stores.

She does good malls, movies, resteraunts, etc, just not at the pet stores.

Love your blog!! Blogmarked it on BlogExplosion!
9:57 AM
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