Today my friend Sabrina wasn’t feeling well, so I wasn’t able to go out with her. Instead, I was invited to go shopping with Aunt Nancy and Cousin Tamara!
We met up at the Hospice Thrift Store first. It is super close to my house, but I’ve never been in before. Felix did an OK job in the thrift store, but not great. There were lots of little pieces of trash on the floor that he REALLY wanted to investigate. I had fun shopping with Nancy and Tamara, and Felix had fun training! Several people remarked on how cute and well behaved he was, which was very nice.
The only thing I saw that I wanted in the store was a purple, pink, and turquoise unicorn squishmallow (a type of stuffed animal). But it was $15!!!! That’s more than they are new in the store! Plus I probably never would have been able to get the smell of other peoples’ detergents out of it. So I left it.
I did get a picture of Felix in the store. He is between my wheelchair footplate and Nancy’s basket. You might notice that my dress and Felix’s harness both have galaxy patterns on them!
Next we headed to Ross. I haven’t been in Ross in ages, as I usually prefer TJ Maxx for some reason (no idea what that reason is!). Felix was better in this store, though still a bit sniffy. I realized that we haven’t been out somewhere Felix had to work in almost two weeks! So he was quite rusty with his public access behaviors. In the future, I’ll have to remember to take him out at least once a week to keep his training sharp.
When we were in the purse section in Ross, I was so impressed with how close Felix had to walk to the purses and not sniff them! Many were leather, and that’s really enticing for dogs. And Felix had to walk underneath some purses the aisle was so narrow! Here’s a video of him in the purse aisle!
We had fun exploring the store, which actually has some really nice wide aisles! Wider than TJ Maxx! I’ll have to remember that next time I’m training a service dog, as Ross would be even better than TJ Maxx I think—except for the fact that Ross isn’t pet friendly.
A few people in Ross noticed that Felix and I were matchy-matchy, and they loved it!
In one of the wide aisles, I asked Tamara to videotape Felix doing a u-turn. She started the video and we did the u-turn, but then she kept on taping! I didn’t realize she was still taping when I did the other u-turn and came back! It made for a pretty funny video! And you get a good look at the wings on the back of my wheelchair!
I got a couple of pictures of Felix in Ross. In one of them, he and I are in front of a mirror, showing off our matching galaxy garb. In the other one, he’s doing a nice down stay next to me in line.
TJ Maxx is right next door, so we headed there next. Felix was about the same in TJ Maxx as he was in Ross—sniffy and wanting to investigate things on the floor. That’s a problem with small service dogs—they are so close to the floor that a leave-it can be challenging!
We walked all around TJ Maxx, but I didn’t find anything I liked there, either. They also didn’t have any dog stuff on clearance! Bummer. I did ask for one last video in TJ Maxx. We were going down an aisle and there was a post in the way, so I got Tamara to take a video of Felix doing a through. That means he goes in front of me through a narrow space, and then he returns to heel after we pass the choke point.
After TJ Maxx, we surely were tired, and it was really hot out. So we decided to head to Sweet Frog and use one of my 25% off coupons. Sweet Frog is a frozen yogurt store. I got the banana and cotton candy swirl flavor they’ve been advertising and it was pretty good! I got lots of cherries on top so it was healthy LOL!
I didn’t take any pictures in Sweet Frog because I was enjoying my yogurt too much!
When I left, an older woman had parked over the lines into the access aisle I need to get back into my car. She was just sitting in her car, so I decided to try to get in the van. I could, but my knees had to almost be touching her car for it to work. I figured she must’ve seen me working hard to get into the van. So when I got done and she got out of her car, I approached her and explained the issue. She just looked at me wordlessly with a big frown on her face. I don’t think she understood any of what I was saying. So I ended by saying “OK, thank you!” and walked away. Sigh.
It was a very fun outing, and I’m glad I still got to out and have fun today! And I’m glad Tamara is such a good videographer so I got three really nice videos!