01/17/2024
Josie graduated her puppy preschool program this week with a trip to PetPeople by Hollywood Feed 🎓
With the frigid cold weather this time of year, dog friendly stores can be a nice place to practice known skills and provide socialization in a novel place.
New environments like this can be bit overwhelming for a puppy though, so we were careful to set Josie up for success by:
-Making sure she had plenty of time to sniff outside and use the bathroom before going indoors.
-Starting in a quiet corner of the store, instead of in the middle where all the action was happening.
-Letting Josie observe and watch from a distance as much as she wanted, while carefully observing her body language for signs of stress or worry.
-Politely declining greetings with other dogs and people to give Josie time and space to learn about strangers without any pressure to interact.
-When we did encounter something she was wary of, a shopping cart, we increased distance and then allowed her to approach at her own pace, always with the option to retreat.
After a just few minutes of acclimation time, Josie was focused and ready to practice some of her favorite skills. ✨
Way to go team Josie!