This afternoon I called my friend Sabrina, and it turns out she was heading up my way to Rock Hill! Her husband and daughter wanted crab legs, and she wanted to stop by the mall while they ate. So Felix and I headed over to meet her at the mall for some fun and training!
I was a little worried about taking Felix out so soon after our Hilton Head trip (blog entry about that coming soon when pictures are done), but figured if he wasn’t feeling up to training, he could just relax on my lap.
He did excellently! He did such a good job of heeling around the mall! He did try to greet Indy a few times, but other than that he was really good. Oh, and in one store there was a small red ball from Christmas decorations on the floor and he picked it up. Because obviously it was placed there just for him, right? But when I told him to leave it, he dropped it and walked on by. So that was good.
We went into a couple of stores. One of them had wide aisles, so Felix was able to walk in it. The other one was Hot Topic, which has notoriously narrow aisles, so Felix was on my lap for that.
Sabrina noticed that Felix and I were all in purple (with galaxy themed leggings, mask, and Felix’s vest), and that there was a purple dinosaur from the Flintstones that kids could ride, and she insisted I get on for a picture!
It was kinda hard to get up and in the small area to sit, and so it felt like my knees were touching my chin, but I made it and boy did it make a funny picture!
Shortly after getting in the dinosaur, I had Sabrina take a video of Felix heeling next to my wheelchair past a Christmas display in the mall. Here it is, complete with Sabrina narrating what we are doing as we turn:
I also got a picture of Sabrina and Indy the Golden Retriever having a moment between the two of them, and a picture of Felix and Indy in front of a Christmas bear and Christmas trees. They were both so good for the picture, holding their stays like champs.
The mall is pretty small and mostly shuttered, so we rolled next door to Walmart to see if they had any sales on Christmas merchandise. This was Felix’s first time in Walmart really. He’d been in a small Walmart Neighborhood Market just in the produce section for 5 minutes, but never in Walmart proper. And this Walmart is a HUGE one!
He did very very well in Walmart! He was a bit hesitant around some of the rushing carts, but handled himself well. He also navigated well in the very crowded Christmas section. I ended up not getting anything, but Sabrina found some New Year celebration aids that she will have fun with!
By then Sabrina’s husband and daughter were done with their meal, so we headed back to the mall for them to pick us up.
We had to go by the kid’s playground area, and there was lots of shrieking. Felix stopped and looked worriedly back at the shrieking behind us a few times, but moved along when I told him to. I think we need to go to more playgrounds and make kid shrieking noises less scary for him.
All in all we were out for a little less than 2 hours, and it was really a great outing. Felix had fun, and so did I!