Orion started out very intimidated by the store. He wouldn’t follow me in on the lead, so I had to pick him up and carry his trembling body into the corner where class was held. 4PAWS Rescue had a bunch of dogs for placement in another part of the store, and he was flinching when the dogs in that area barked.
Then he discovered that whatever we were doing involved food. Life started looking up. When he discovered that the nice lady in the middle of the class area had something called Bil-Jac Pet Treats, we had 100% of his attention. He stopped trembling, stopped wanting to hide behind me or between my legs, and paid no attention to the dogs and noises in the rest of the store.
He even played with the nice lady’s one year old Malamute after class. Kodiak is a gorgeous dog, also a rescue, and managed to restrain his exuberance sufficiently that he was able to play with Orion without scaring him.
Orion received lots of complements on his cuteness. And on the way out of the store, he wanted to visit with the other dogs, rather than acting shy of them.