Home Depot and Clowns

Corky had a Southeastern Guide Dogs Puppy Raiser meeting this morning at Home Depot. Home Depot was having a safety expo for kids, which was a great exposure for dogs as it had lots of things going on.

Close-up shot of Corky

 Now, Corky is still a little guy, so we stayed mostly in our area and just let Corky do a little meet and greet.  But he did get to hear the sirens of the fire engines because they were right next to us.

Roger specifically wanted a shot of him helping with the orange table cloth.
He did an excellent job folding!

 We had two pop up tents, so we had plenty of space in which to retreat from...

The Clown Krewe was opposite of our tent.  I am scared of clowns.  Yuck. 

Clowns!  Well, I don't care what sort of exposures Corky needed, he wasn't getting a clown exposure!  Not with me by his side.  I don't care what you say, they are creepy and I'm not putting a dog through that.

Leo, looking handsome.  Leo is a chocolate lab.

Jalika didn't have a fear of clowns and neither did Leo.  He handled his clown exposure with ease.

Bingo was so sweet.  She is a black labrador.

Bingo and Leo are the same age.  They are both 6 months old and seemed to be real favorites with people.

Nancy, a puppy raiser, has Cleo, a yellow lab.

Nancy was nice enough to offer to drive up to Palm Harbor, so Corky and I carpooled with her and Christy.

Sylvia and Denny are in our group and are puppy sitters for us.  Denny is a remarkably sweet former guide dog candidate who didn't make it.

Sylvia with Denny.  Denny is very white around the face.

Close-up of sweet Denny.  He will greet any dog with good humor.

 There was a pygmy goat wandering around on a leash and they always have issues.  They would rather be regular goats.  So, we made sure to keep our distance.  Same went for the chicken and the horse.

Keep it light, keep it small, keep it clown-free.

The Farm Experience

On Thursday we went to a stable to have the dogs meet some farm animals. At first we met them at a distance in the ring and watched them riding around through the fence. Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley was fine with that. Then we went through the stable where the occupants peered over there stalls to see who was visiting. HRH looked back at me to see if these behemoths were for real.


As we got deeper into the stable, HRH managed to look up into the horse's face and make eye contact.



We soon left the horses and wandered over to the pot bellied pig pen. Last year Bingo had wanted nothing to do with the pigs. This year, however, HRH found them interesting and went right up to the fence and sniffed. She stayed there for a bit looking at the pig curiously.



Then we moved on to goats. The goats were very standoffish and this was as close as we got, which seemed to be fine with dogs and goats both.

Overall, I think the experience was out of the ordinary for her, as in her daily travels, she will most likely not meet a goat, pig or horse, but if she does, she now has a frame of reference for them.