I guess the more places you can take the pups, the more places to meet potential adopters, huh?

We all have to do the best with what we’re have to work with. It sounds like Georgia’s more of a nature girl than a shopper anyway. 🙂

As for the boats, spring is slow coming to upstate NY so most of the boats are still out of the water. We’re hoping with a few warm days, we’ll start seeing sail boats in our local marina so we can get back to our boat socialization work.

I recently read about a couple who bought and sold two boats until they found one their dogs could tolerate (a catamaran; apparently the dogs didn’t tolerate heeling very well). We’d better do a good job in our training because there’s no way we can afford to buy and sell boats to suit Miss Honey. 🙂

Easter was nice but not the long holiday celebrated in the British commonwealth. We didn’t have any extra time off. Hope all went well for you too.

Socialization can do a lot but each dog has his own personality, doesn’t he? Honey is quite the social butterfly so it’s no surprise she’d like the shopping mall.

It’s good that George trusts you enough that he can handle crowds for a short time when he has to.

Wow, that mall sounds great! We have a pedestrian mall downtown that is absolutely dog-free. And the pedestrian mall in our favorite vacation town, Cape May, NJ is also off-limits to dogs. The Stony Point mall sounds very forward thinking.

I am definitely jealous! And I hate shopping. But I’d go anyway if I could do it with dogs.

We had built-in socialization since we live one block from an elementary school. Everyone in the neighborhood walks their children to school (and takes care of dog walking chores at the same time).

You’re right, though, about keeping an eye on your pup’s stress levels. It can get to be too much after a while.

Darn bicycles. What do they think they are? 🙂

I find it’s hit or miss around here regarding pet friendliness. The shopping mall is open to dogs one day a year.

But we have an open air pedestrian mall downtown on which dogs are banned. And the city park located on the lake is off-limits to dogs too.

Hopefully someday polite people and their dogs will be allowed most places.

Your experience with Shiva shows how even when a dog doesn’t have the perfect start (and let’s face it, most don’t), she can learn and grow with lots of care and attention.

And even having a good start with Honey doesn’t mean I’ve done everything right. We’re seeing a little fear of moving objects that I think may have been caused by stuff falling near her around the house. So I’m having to do a lot of hard work to get her boat ready for the future.

You probably have a greater understanding of the importance of socialization just from comparing Chester and Gretel. I hope you keep seeing progress with Gretel. Hopefully, Chester will give her some confidence too.

in our little town, we can bring dogs into the local hardware store and the video store, as well as the boutique pet supplies store. the three spots are very close to one another, so sometimes i take one or both dogs downtown to run errands and hit all three if possible!