The Snowpocalypse

Today, in spite of the sleet/snow yuck falling, I packed up Maus, Jai, and Rubi to make the trek across the cities for class. Nine miles from my house, I decided that I want to live and turned around. I felt bad for dressing up the dogs and not going anywhere with them, though, so we stopped at the Chuck & Don's Pet Food Outlet three miles from my house to stretch our legs and oogle at things we can't afford.

At least the Snowpocalypse is pretty. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it. 

I brought Maus inside first, and he surprised me by flirting shamelessly with the staff. He even wanted pets - really wanted them, as in leaning up on people and everything - which pretty much never happens around strangers. I'm not sure what to attribute his sudden affection to. Maybe he figured they were wearing the same clothes to pay tribute to him, and he should be kind to his worshipers. That makes about as much sense as any other theory I have.

Maus and his admirers. 

After Maus was done whoring himself for cookies, I brought Rubi in. We worked on proofing her tricks for a bit. Then, we worked on stays on top of a cat tree, because that's why they have cat trees in pet stores, right?

Cat tree? It's not even tree shaped.
Now it's a Rubi podium. 

While Rubi and I were goofing around with this, the only other person crazy enough to be out with their dog in this weather came into the store. Rubi and I were both on top of our game, though, and B decided that hanging out on top of her podium and eating treats was way more awesome than freaking out at that other dog. Even when the other dog came within about six feet of us.

Not wanting to tempt fate, I put Rubi away after that and brought out Jai. While we were there, and handful of people came in and out of the store, so we got a chance to practice refocusing after sudden environmental changes. In between people, we amused ourselves by proofing our "look pathetic" trick . . .

He's really very good at it.

And a few down stays . . .

"Bring food back with you!"

Followed by some impulse control for flavor.

It's not torture if his tail is wagging.

All in all, not a bad day's work for a snow day!