Refrigerator Fear

I hadn't previously taken any pics of Cabana in her dapper green jacket, so here are a couple. She looks so cute with her tongue out!


In the one below, she looks like she's trying to be a swimsuit model or something. Does that seem weird to say? I guess it's the way she has her body kind of twisted with her head held high--she looks so posed....Okay, I guess it does seem weird to say.


In the past week or so, I have become aware of Cabana's fear of the refrigerated sections in grocery stores. I think it's always been there, but I hadn't put two and two together to see the correlation between her sometimes hesitant/obstinate behavior in grocery stores and the fact that we were passing or approaching a cheese stand or deli counter.

It doesn't happen when we're going through a cold section with doors (like ice cream), but it definitely happens in the dairy section. I don't know if it's the sound of the fan/motor, or the cold air that's sinking down to her level, or that maybe the floor is cold there?

Last week, I needed two things at the grocery store, one of which was sour cream. Cabana would NOT allow us to get to that part of the store. I tried it from one angle and then another--but whenever we got close, she would hunker down and refuse to budge. I tried cajoling, pulling, giving treats. I finally had to ask another customer in the store to bring the sour cream to me!

Since then, I have gone back to the store when I wasn't in shopping mode. No purse, no hurries, no timeline. I tried carrying Cabana around the refrigerated sections, hoping she'd see there wasn't anything to be afraid of. I gave her treats to get her to come closer--but she was still fearful.

Then my puppy group leader and her GD puppy, Accord, met us at a grocery store so they could help Cabana overcome her anxiety. Nothing pleases Cabana more than to be around other dogs, and she would have followed Accord to the ends of the earth. She followed Accord through the refrigerated sections with no problem.

But today, I went back to my usual grocery store with Cabana, and the fearful body language came back. However, after 3-4 times of working back through the trigger spots, Cabana seemed to be much better. We'll see how it goes the next time we go back there.