One of the thrills of puppyhood is going out and trying new experiences together, from hanging out at the outdoor café to visiting a dog park for the very first time. Whether it’s just a typical day together or even a sight-seeing trot down city streets, helping your new best buddy get comfortable in this increasingly pup-friendly world with all the exciting sights, sounds, and smells around him is a fun way to bond.
Grisha Stewart remembers how she introduced Peanut, her Border Collie/Whippet mix puppy, to the sights and sounds of her former job as a math instructor at Seattle University in Seattle, Washington, where she and Peanut had a class-act experience, interacting with students and enjoying the campus. Getting there was a good part of the adventure too.
“The university was very progressive about letting people have their dogs there during working hours,” she says. As they rode the bus together every day, Peanut and Stewart gradually became comfortable as her pup grew into a companion who is comfortable now going anywhere Stewart goes—from downtown city streets to a dog-friendly pub down the street from their home.
Over time, she varied their walking routes, which make both of them more comfortable in new situations, which in turn, expanded their horizons.
“I think you grow this bond in the early days in a way that allows more freedom to go even more places where you can share your lives,” she says.
Tommy Grammer of Charleston, South Carolina, hardly goes anywhere without Meiko, his German Shepherd Dog companion of several years now. Of course, there are the dog parks, walking trails, and numerous dog-friendly cafés. But he even plans both business and pleasure trips around Meiko, and he’s able to do it because when Meiko was still a puppy, he made sure Meiko got to try out a variety of environments.
“We’d go for lunch in these little downtown restaurants in Charleston where they’d let us sit together on the patio,” Grammer says. Now, Meiko is comfortable in any environment, and Grammer is comforted by the fact he never has to leave Meiko out of his traveling.
Of course, there are dog-friendly hotels and eateries along the road, and Grammer and Meiko stay there when they must travel overnight. In that sense, Grammer and Meiko get to share one more thing—friendship.
“I don’t think we went anywhere without each other that first year,” Grammer says. “And after that, we didn’t want to go anywhere without each other.”
