Day 100: Lessons Learned on a Beach Walk in March, Upon Returning to a Place the Dog Used to Run Wildly through With Four Legs

1.  If there isn't a dog at the end of the beach, and we don't have treats, our tripod dog does not want to walk as long as she used to.  This is neither good, nor bad, but it means we have to get our exercise in other ways.

She was about to go on a sit-down strike only about fifteen minutes into the walk, when she spotted a golden retriever at the edge of the beach.  If you look closely at this picture, you see the golden's tail seeming to come out of Zoe's body.

2.  We can trust her now not to roll in every single smelly thing.  Case in point: the 13 jellyfish we counted on the walk back.  This is a good development.

3.  If the male person leaves to go to throw away the poop bag, and the team of three is split up, Zoe will be in a quandary.  For a long time she will stand in between her two people, pointing one way, then the other.  As a herding dog, this is a difficult moment for her.  Her sheep are not together.

4.  When possible, she will dog the man's footsteps, and we now understand why this noun is sometimes the only verb that will do.

Here's the sequence of how it went down, below:

The dog's male person leaves to toss the poop bag.  Dog can't take her eyes off him.

Dog gets in line directly behind him as soon as he's back and they walk away from the other person, who is once again taking too many pictures.

Plowing through sand can be harder than cutting a path through snow

5.  Three flights of stairs, with landings, and all that space in between, are a bit too much for a tripod dog at this stage of the game.  (Husband with arthritic hip concurs.) She often looks longingly on the second floor.  Are we there yet?  And today on the afternoon walk, her footing gave out, the back leg collapsed, just before we started up the stairs.  I thought I was going to have to carry her, and wasn't sure I could.  She weighs 65 pounds now.  But then she just rallied.  She said, Yes we can, like an Obama dog campaign ad, and before I knew it we were up.


6.  A dog doing a back roll in jellyfish-free sand is just as adorable as one rolling in snow.  The difference is that the snow melts on the carpet, and the sand, well, it never goes away unless you vacuum.  But if you don't care, it's sure cute.