Paige's biggest outing to date

Yesterday, after a particularly disheartening visit to the apartment (No, I don't want to actually talk about it), I decided I needed a little retail therapy. So I called up Joce and we decided to go to my local Winners. Since it's a really quiet Winners (as far as Winners goes) in a fairly quiet mall, I decided that it would be good exposure for Paige.

I did go in with a purpose. I wanted a new wallet. Note to all who live with an illness like bipolar or who deal with somebody who does: Shopping without a solid objective is DANGEROUS! Like "do not try this at home" dangerous. Money runs out of your fingers like water and you end up with a bunch of stuff that you don't even remember buying.

Anyways, I wanted a wallet. All of the wallets were on a 4 sided little square stand. I figured this was a good practice for positioning and for waiting for Paige. So I had her lay between me and the first side and wait while I rooted through the shelf (sometimes I really hate Winners because of the lack of organization). Then we moved to the second side. I had to reposition Paige so she was between me and the rack again. I found the wallet that I wanted there but in the interest of practice I did the other two sides as well. Paige positioned perfectly on both of those sides. Yeah Paige. I even *accidentally* dropped a wallet on Paige at one point. She didn't even flinch. She gave it a "What?" look but didn't break the down or make any sounds.

We then wondered through the purses and the clothing with Joce. I practiced a lot of turns (both into her and away from her) and stops. After a bit, she was very mindful of where I was. I didn't run into her if I turned and never had to ask her to stop or let her know that I was moving again. I did manage to find a shirt that I wanted to try on but I decided to leave it behind and that we would do dressing rooms at a later date. We had already been in the store for about 45 min. Then we goofed around looking at all the little knick-knacky things up by the tills. And then we paid. Again, Paige showed that she knew exactly what to do at the counter and flopped down at my feet against the till. The hardest thing I am ever going to do is to get this dog to hold a sit without lying down.

As we were leaving Winners, the security guard in the mall gave me a chance to practice my access challenge skills:

"Sorry, but we don't allow pets in the mall."

"She's not a pet. She's a service dog in training."

"Oh, I see her badges. Most of the dogs have longer capes."

"I prefer the vest during the warm weather" (I don't actually own a cape - yet. I'm going to get one for winter because her heavy coat is going to hide her little vest)

"We've had some problems with people bring their pets in."

"Thank you for asking me about her. I understand that pets aren't allowed in the mall."

During all of this I had a confident smile on my face. I didn't feel that confident inside, but nobody can see your insides.

After we left the mall, we decided we wanted to stop at the dairy queen across the street. We ordered. When I went to pay, for some reason I mildly tangled in the leash, tripped over my own feet, and ended up stepping on Paige who was lying in front of the till. Paige didn't even flinch. I got a "what are you doing?" look but no other response. Good girl. After I had her positioned underneath the table, a group of giggling teenage girls came in to select a frozen cake. I don't know if Paige has ever seen this type of person before, let alone 3 of them. She remained under the table but turned to face them. She watched them so intently but didn't move a muscle. Some people say that the dog's head should be down all the time when they are out but I don't feel that's necessary. I'm perfectly okay with her watching the going ons so long as she's not soliciting attention or looking for dropped food. Especially during her exposure training that we're doing right now. I figure if she gets to see everything, than nothing is going to be surprising later. For her to be steady will be helpful on the days when I'm not.

It was a huge outing for Paige. We were out for over an hour. We walked past all sorts of smelly things in Winners. There was a basket of little stuffed animals that I needed to "leave it" on. And a couple of purses too - I think they were genuine leather ones. We saw teenagers. We saw children being all excited and screaming "puppy/doggy". Happily all the parents knew that we don't pet service dogs. I handled my most serious access challenge to date and I would like to think I did very well with it. And Paige was working very hard on being invisible, which a service dog should be. She was doing so well that a couple who went around me almost ran right into her. She's figuring out her positioning and she's making excellent choices. All in all, Super Service Puppy and a pat on the back for her handler as well.