This afternoon, Felix and I met up with Sabrina, Indy, and Russ after their doctor’s appointment. We met at a local park, and Sabrina and Russ picked up some Chicken Salad Chick for us to eat for dinner.
Felix was a bit excited because we were at a park and he wanted to run around and go for a walk! But he did a pretty good job of lying down next to my wheelchair while I ate. He did get up a few times, but was easily redirected back to lying down.
During our meal, we talked about Hestia’s upcoming retirement party, which will be held at this park. After we ate, we rolled around a bit and saw all the picnic areas. It will be a great location for a little party for Hestia!
Next we headed over to Dollar Tree. I needed to get candy and toys to be our BINGO prizes at the upcoming Psychiatric Service Dog Partners’ convention. I haven’t been to a Dollar Tree in many many years—probably at least a decade if not two! And would you believe that they don’t charge a dollar for anything anymore?! It’s $1.25 now, and some things are as much as $5!!! I’m guessing most of you already know this LOL
The first aisle we went down in the store had some fake flowers, and several flowers were on the floor strewn about. So I asked Russ to take a video of Felix walking past the flowers on the floor. He did an OK job, though he did sniff one flower. I told him to leave it, and he did. But this was early on in the store and we hadn’t been to a store for several weeks, so he was a bit rusty. Below is that video:
We continued on our trek through the store to find goodies for BINGO, and later on we came across another fake flower section of the store. Believe it or not, this one was even messier! Now this Dollar Tree was pretty clean for a Dollar Tree, but there must be something about the fake flowers that just generates detritus! So I had Russ take another video of Felix. He did better this time, though I was watching him too closely and didn’t realize we had a narrow passage coming up at the end of the aisle and nearly ran him into some buckets! Below is that video.
It was a lot of fun to go through Dollar Tree with Sabrina and Russ. Sabrina and I had a lot of fun looking at all the things in the store, and Russ was really handy as a basket carrier! Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to work with Felix on the floor if I had to carry a basket. So Russ was a huge help!
I ended up getting a few toys, a coloring book, and some candy for BINGO prizes. Felix was so good, once he got over his initial excitement of finally being out in a store after so many weeks. He was able to ignore a lot of things on the floor and shelves, and did a good job heeling and going through tight spaces.
He also did a great job at checkout! I normally don’t buy things when we go out to train in stores, so he hasn’t been on the ground for many checkouts. I had to have him in front of me as the aisle was too narrow for him to be next to me, and he did a great job of just hanging out while I paid and everything.
We were all pretty exhausted after our outing, so we parted ways. It was so good to see Sabrina again, it always seems like it’s been too long since I’ve last seen her! And Felix was very happy to see Indy (he kept trying to sniff her butt!). I’m sure we’ll have more adventures soon!