The last report I posted on Tucker at the mall was not good! But since then he's been soooo good at the mall and out in other public places. Must have been hormones that day . . .
But today at the mall he did extremely well in spite of an incident. Two teenage girls allowed a toddler (18mo?) to do a belly flop onto Tucker's back!!! I was sitting on a bench and Tucker was down. He was startled but did not get up, yelp, or wet himself!! I think it startled me more than him. They approached from behind so I didn't even see them coming, and was unable to prevent it before it was too late. To the baby, Tucker was just a big stuffed toy. And the girls thought it was cute.
Most folks ask if their children can pet the dog, and understand when I explain why the answer is no. But I'm sure you've all run into folks that think our dogs mean playtime for their kids! I think these girls felt kind of bad when I explained the situation. I would have really liked to give them a piece of my mind (they should know better), but PR was more important at the moment! They learned something about service dogs and autism today, so the experience was was worth it -- both for them and for Tucker!
The mall sure is the best place for distractions of all kinds (second only to puppy class)! Tucker was already kind of antsy today, so I wondered if this incident would get him riled up and hyper. But he seemed to shake it off and get right back to work. I was proud of Tucker today -- at times like this I can see how far he's come.
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Go Tucker!!!
ReplyDeletePaws up for Tucker...usually in a bad dog/people situation, it's the people that are the problem.
ReplyDeleteThanks for helping to educate the girls on proper dog approaching--service dog in training or not.
It just takes one bad incident to take progress in legislation backward