Why you/I shouldn’t shop and train! 1

I’m always telling people to train, not shop, when you’re dealing with a service dog in training puppy. You can never focus on both things, and usually something gets messed up. Well today, I re-discovered that is the case!

I was supposed to meet someone for a Manners Evaluation today. I was already almost there, 10 minutes away when they messaged me and said they couldn’t come after all. So I turned around and headed to Pet Supermarket. Alice has been there once before with Hestia, and I thought it’d be a good low key outing.

I didn’t plan on buying anything—in fact I left my wallet in the van! But when we walked in (which Alice did very excellently!) there was a giant display of Alice’s food with a sign saying 50% off in big letters with some other fine print. I was too focused on training Alice to read the fine print.

So we went around the store and trained, and Alice did very well! I was really pleased with her! She walked past some ladders and things that made aisles narrow, and she wasn’t bothered by the refrigerated cases or the fish tanks or birds. There was a minimum of stopping throughout.

I grabbed three bags of the dog food and went to try to check out. Well, first I had to go out to the car to grab my wallet! I decided I would focus almost all my energy on Alice and very little on checking out.

I was very proud of myself, doing lots of training Alice to stand near the counter, ignore the dog that walked by and barked at her, etc. I was paying so much attention to Alice that I just swiped my card when they told me and didn’t pay attention to anything else they said.

Then something registered and I asked what the total price was again—after I had swiped my card. It was most definitely NOT 50% off! So I am managing Alice and trying to explain the sale sign to the cashier.

She comes back after reading the sign and explains that I have to buy two things to get the 50% off—at least that’s what my brain heard because I’m still furiously paying attention to and training with Alice.

So she returns the original order and checks me out a second time. Luckily this time I paid attention to the price she mentioned, and it was similar to before, even though I now had 4 bags of food. I was very confused, so I picked up Alice so I could focus on the conversation with the cashier.

It turns out the sale was buy one get one 50% off. It’s just that the first part of that statement was in tiny print and I hadn’t read it! So then I had to put two bags back and just purchase two bags of food.

It was a mess! I did a pretty darn good job of training Alice, but that meant that my ability to read signs and pay was extremely impaired!

I won’t be doing that again for sure!