I'm not trying to "mean" or offend you, but I feel the same way Cookiebaker does. I personally strive to keep my dogs under control when I go to a place like this. I know they get all excited, but this is one of the places I can take them & "test" how well their training is doing. All 3 of mine listen very well when we go there (although Roxey is soooo excited when we first get there she almost falls flat of her face on the linoleum!). I've met alot of people there who seem afraid, so I just get as far away from them as I can, or go the other way. My mom has an african grey & she goes to a pet store that just caters mostly to birds & no outside animals are allowed in. Could there be one like this in your area? Not saying you shouldn't be able to go into Petco or Petsmart, but everyone is not the way I am with their dogs, alot of people just don't care (big surprise)!
This kinda reminds me of yesterday. We went to SuperPetz to get dogfood & took Angus (the monster! as alot of people called him yesterday!). We decided to go look at cars, so he went with too. So many people were scared of him, he never lunged or tried to go towards them unless I told him to, but the comments were so funny
"He looks like he could really take a hunk out of you!" "Can I pet him, will he bite?" "OMG, he's huge!" And the best thing of the day was when we met someone who had rottweilers & he asked "How old is he? Around 5?" Woo Hoo! What a compliment! I said nope, he's 11, and the guy couldn't believe it!
I know, I kinda got a little off the subject, but I understand when you say the dogs scare you, look at all the people who were scared of Angus (and he's a big ol' pussycat )