This morning I had to run to Publix, shop, and get back all within one hour! Luckily I didn’t have to get many things—mostly bananas and a few things that were on sale.
Hestia was PERFECT while we were there! She heeled the entire time, didn’t sniff, and was generally great! It was funny, too, because she was in her winter coat instead of a service vest due to it being below freezing out. But Hestia knows she’s working if she’s inside a store—she doesn’t put much stock in vests telling her when she’s working.
We didn’t have a single access challenge while we were there, probably partly because they’re used to seeing us there, and partly because Hestia was acting like a perfect service dog the whole time!
I got my shopping done and went to checkout. I had 15 min before I needed to be home, and when I got to the checkout area the only lane with a cashier had 5 people with very full carts in front of me. So I had to do self checkout.
I HATE self-checkout. It is simply awful for me for some reason. I don’t understand how it works really, the machine is always mad at me for taking things out of the bagging area, and produce boggles my mind. So I have done self-checkout with Hestia probably only a handful of times in her life.
Hestia was confused by the self-checkout process. She would stand next to me as I scanned my item, but then when I walked over to the bagging area, she thought it was time to leave the store so would just start prancing to the exit…only to be stopped by the leash. By that time I was needing to go back over to the cart, so she would confusedly walk over to me. The whole process repeated itself probably 5–8 times before Hestia figured out that she should just stand there no matter what I was doing. It was pretty funny.
I got a picture of Hestia in the chip aisle in front of my favorite chips—Pepperonchini Kettle Chips and Honey Dijon Kettle Chips. They were on sale! She is a black and white Japanese Chin wearing a turquoise coat with a purple leash and a leash slide saying “service dog”.
