Must-Have Skills for Shopping with Your Dog

Outings are my favorite! It is so much fun to take a dog with you to enjoy life outside the house or neighborhood.

You know what’s not fun? Taking your dog into the store only to have him drag you all over the place, bark at the other dogs he sees, and whine at or jump all over the people who pass by.

Avoid the embarrassment and enjoy your time together with these two must-have skills for outings (plus three bonus skills!):

Leash Manners

Walking through a store is different than walking through your neighborhood or park. Six feet ahead and crossing back and forth to enjoy the smells works great on the sidewalk, but it doesn’t work so well in TJ Maxx.

Outings are fun when the dog follows along next to you, slows down when you slow down and stops when you stop. It doesn’t need to look like an obedience competition—a casual heel works just fine.

Here’s an example of my foster puppy walking through Lowe’s and of a client’s dog practicing in Old Navy.

How did we get there? Check out this video with a Board and Train dog for some tips.

Pro Tip: if you actually want to shop when your dog is with you, make sure your dog can walk next to you for an extended period of time without getting a treat. Frequent treating is hard when you’re trying to hold a leash and your purchases!

Settle

In between walking from point A to point B, dogs who shop or dogs who dine do a lot of nothing. Dogs who can relax in public need less hand-holding which means you actually do something other than train while you’re out. As unimpressive as it might look, waiting patiently is actually a crucial skill that separates the men from the boys—so to speak.

Begin teaching your dog how to settle by simply rewarding him every time he chooses to lie down at home. (Make sure your bait bag is on and stocked with treats.) Keep a sharp eye on your dog and when you see him lie down without being told, prompted or lured, reach into your bag and put a treat on the ground near his paws.

For something a bit more formal, I highly recommend Dr. Karen Overall’s Protocol for Relaxation. Again, start inside your home before trying the same concept during a training outing.

Focus on those two skills and you’ll have a pretty nice canine companion for outings. Here are three more skills that support the two main skills:

Volunteered Eye Contact

This is a crucial skill for all the pet dogs I work with—whether or not their owners have dreams of outings and adventures. Understand this: a choice to look at you, is also a choice NOT to look at everything else in the environment. One of the reasons outings are so challenging is because there are LOTS of distractions. If your dog can’t choose to ignore the mild distractions in your home and look at you (without being asked), how is he going to have good behavior in Academy?

Distraction-Reaction

Stores and restaurants are FULL of distractions. Leash manners and settling can fall apart if your dog doesn’t know how to handle the strangers, shopping carts, children, and merchandise.

My philosophy for distractions is to turn them into cues. I want my dog to look at a distraction and know that the distraction means Look At Handler. I do NOT want my dog going nuts over something until I intervene with a cue to pay attention or calm down. The distraction IS the cue to pay attention.

I used the Engage/Disengage method to teach this concept.

Down

Down (i.e. lie down) is helpful for encouraging settling, but it’s important to remember that settling isn’t actually about body position—although that’s part of it. Settling is actually about a relaxed/resting state of mind. Nevertheless, Down is handy to have as you start to practice in public.

Outings for training v. Outings for real errands.

Initially, your outings will be exclusively for training. The better trained your dog is, the less micromanaging he needs and the more you can actually shop or eat. Make sure you’re prepared to focus 100% on your dog in the beginning! Don’t have any agenda other than training.

Once you both have some experience under your belt, you can think about taking your dog along for a real outing.

Please remember that it is NEVER okay to take your dog into a store or restaurant that does not allow pets. You cannot lie and call your dog a service or therapy dog to gain access. Outings for pet dogs must be limited to pet-friendly locations.