Today we went to Fleet Feet (a shoe store) and to Pet Supplies Plus with little Alice.
My podiatrist told me I needed to get insoles from Fleet Feet, and they allow pets there, so I decided to take Alice on a little adventure!
She did OK in the store. She enjoyed meeting a few people there, and was happy to walk up and down the main aisle. But when I wanted to go in side aisles, she decided she didn’t want to do that and put on the brakes.
Luckily I did convince her to go down one side aisle and visit a mirror! She didn’t care about her reflection in the mirror at all, which is great!
While I was talking with the employees about my insole needs and trying them on, I just held her. She was very happy to sit up in my arms and observe. She really likes being up high and looking out!
On our way home, we stopped by Pet Supplies Plus for a quick loop around the store to diagnose the problems I’ve been having with her walking.
It’s been hard because I haven’t really been able to walk her in three weeks due to my foot. So we haven’t gotten to work on walking.
By walking around Fleet Feet and the pet store, I realized that the problem now isn’t stopping to observe things, but rather being independently minded about where she wants to go. She is perfectly happy to be there and walk around, but she wants to walk where she wants to walk and not necessarily where I want to walk.
With the help of PSDP’s peer guidance group, I came up with a plan to train this, and put it in action tonight. I leashed her and stood in the living room with chicken and my clicker (to mark the correct behavior). I took a step forward, and when she moved one paw like she was going in my direction, I’d click and treat. We did this around the living room and a few steps into the hallway. We worked on it for four minutes, and by the end of that time I think I did see and improvement in the speed of her decision making to follow me. So that is good news.
I will be focusing on that as my main training thing for now, and putting leave-it a little lower in the priority list (that has been my priority for about a week).
Brad got pictures in Fleet Feet, but was a little tired to get them in the pet store. In them, I am wearing my galaxy dress and mask. Alice is a tiny sable and white Chin puppy in a pink plaid harness.
