Dave Smith wrote:
> Nancy2 wrote:
>>
>>
>> Why take a dog to a pet food store, anyway????
>> Leave the damn thing at home.
>>
>
>
> Why not? They sell dog food. It is good marketing to cater to dog
> owners. If they sold food and toys for children I can see good reasons
> to take children there.

Well, other than my go-round with the insouciant Crested (it was all his
fault, ahem), I don't have a problem with the dogs in pet supply stores.
I do have a problem with how they are being handled by their owners some
times. And I have a huge problem with the way parents allow their
children to approach other people's dogs! A dog is a dog, and it will
behave like a dog no matter what. It's its thing. It's what it does. It
can't help it. The children need to be taught that what they're doing,
in simplest terms, might scare the doggie and that they must leave it alone.

My parents taught us well. They had five children who all wanted to "see
doggie!" They made it clear that it is not our dog, not our
Sammy/Polly/Delilah/Tasha/Sophie/Kate/Bibbins/Boris/Tinkerbell/Mackenzie/...
whichever of the many dogs we had over the years they were referring to
at the time, and to leave it be. Don't call it, don't go to it, don't
reach out for it, don't try to pet it. If it came to us by itself, we
must hold still and keep our hands at our sides. It isn't easy to do,
but it never failed.