Big Dog Food Mountain

By Fred
Today at lunchtime Bingo and I went to Petsmart for some dog food, Panera for lunch, and then Target to pick up a few groceries. These places have two things in common to tempt and torment a puppy: sticky floors and stinky smells. The rain opened up as soon as we got to the store, not that Bingo cared. We both got pretty wet.

We'd been to Petsmart before, to get some toys, but today we needed to visit the several aisles that have bags of dog food stacked to the ceiling. Big mountains of dog food loomed over him as we walked, back and forth, around and around until finally he regained some sense of focus and sobriety, at which time I gave him a big hug and his little tail really wagged. I'm doing more hugs now when he can overcome distractions.

In Panera, I found myself holding a tray of food and drink with one hand and holding, with some uncertainty, the leash in my other hand, noticing for the first time how much food and little pieces of paper and napkins that people drop on the floor. But Bingo did fine, even when a man actually dropped a whole piece of bread on the floor as he walked past us.

He was really good in Target, a B+, maybe, with some points deducted for nose diving near the dairy case and for getting too friendly with a bag of tortilla chips. In the checkout line a man rushed up to us and reached out to pet Bingo, but a sweet grandmother nearby yelled "You cain't touch him," causing the man to slink away quickly when he saw that the woman was considering whether to smack him with her fat purse.

Back home, we unloaded the car and he promptly curled up for a nap, his paws soon twitching their way up the big dog food mountain.