Dog Friendly Businesses!

I often browse through my earlier Posts, just as a way of recalling the “world according to Ray” at a given time in the past! This morning, I revisited a Post from near Christmas 2014 (link below):

https://meandray.com/2014/12/22/open-letter-from-ray/

Ray had lived with us for 21 months at that time, and reading the “Thank You” to both Lululemon and TD Bank, it occurred to me just how significant they were, and still are, in Ray’s world.

With Ray being my first dog, I had never considered the impact of dog friendly businesses and/or staff that would not only appreciate a canine visitor periodically, but would also cooperate with training!

Both those businesses are on the very top of his places to visit whenever we go downtown, and they are also very high on our list. They both not only played a significant role in getting him more comfortable around people, but also helped him develop social skills (of which he initially had none).

Ray pretty much introduced us to Lululemon because of their large bowl of biscuits, and the TD bank was on our route regularly for banking reasons. However, upon reflection, I can highly recommend introducing any dog, and certainly dogs with issues, to all the dog friendly businesses that you have within reach! You just never know how important they may become in your dog’s development.

We are so pleased with both those businesses because they accepted Ray without question, even though we went into great detail about his issues and potential reactions to certain circumstances. Both businesses experienced his lunge and bark routine, but both persevered with us and here we are, 2 years later…. and Ray still loves to visit and (probably more importantly) they still love to see him.

A Merry Christmas to all dog friendly stores, and especially the staff!  🙂

12 thoughts on “Dog Friendly Businesses!”

  1. We are fortunate to live in a part of town where the nearby shopping area is full of small stores/boutiques that have a great reputation as being dog friendly for which we are exceedingly grateful. I wish more businesses would be as enlightened and friendly toward the 4 legged population. Happy ‘howlidays’ to all!

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    • They certainly do, but I suspect they were surprised at first. Having a big cuddly “teddy” walk in and then lunge and bark would be a pretty daunting experience (and I know… having been on the receiving end of such a gesture)! They deserve high 5’s for having faith in him.

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  5. Great story. I also love businesses that have a resident pet. Most times it’s a dog but occasionally a cat. They risk losing business because of allergies (or neurotic folks that don’t like animals). Last year (maybe you remember — I blogged about it) our local Plow and Hearth allowed an employee to bring a rescued kitten that was just a few days old to work and allowed her to feed it every half hour or so. I love businesses with compassion and I will patronize them. Locally we have a few restaurants with outdoor eating patios that are dog friendly but I’m not aware of any stores (of course I don’t have a dog). There is a bank drive-through that will give treats to dogs in the car. Pretty cool.

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