[nagdu] Beach experiences

Wayne Merritt wcmerritt at gmail.com
Sat Aug 8 20:01:33 UTC 2009


Greetings. For those interested, this is a follow up to my query last
weekend regarding pet tags on the beach for a guide dog, along with
some of my experiences this past week in Florida. First off, thanks to
all that provided feedback and answered my original questions. AS it
turned out, I took the harness and my school's ID card each time we
went to the beach, but no one ever approached. I was amazed at how
many people we passed on the beach or nearby that talked among
themselves of the guide dog, many of whom were kids. The small
community I went to for the vacation was definitely made for tourists,
and there were plenty there. It wasn't too crowded though. It was also
made for families, and there were plenty of those as well. At one
point i was walking up from the water without a cane or dog, and
knocked over a little kid. I quickly apologized and helped him up, but
then later remarked to a family member what had happened and added,
"I'm not sure if they were one of ours or not."

Anyway, my GSD Gucci did very well, I think she liked being at the
beach and walking through the sand. She even got her paws wet on the
shore. though she initially cowered behind myself or a family member
when waves would really crash on shore, she began to warm up to the
water. I took her out in the water, the leash being the only thing
that connected us, and I'm not sure she enjoyed it as much as I did.
At one point, she was nearly standing straight up with her hind legs
on the sandy bottom, and her front legs doing the dog paddle. I'm not
sure she understood just why hse couldn't swim forward. Between her
motion, the motion of the waves, and the balance issues that anyone
has when in such a predicament, it was quite interesting. My dad
finally came out and took over, helping Gucci back to shore. She spent
most of her time though at the beach under an umbrella that we had
setup, and there was nearly always someone there with her or nearby.
She was given plenty of water to drink, and even was reported to have
drunk right out of the bottle of water. I'm not sure I could give her
a drink like that, but often she would lick the water as it was coming
from the bottle and before it hit the collapsable water bowl I
brought. Her hard Shepherd pull was definitely appreciated whenever we
had to walk up the hills of sand back to the car to go back to the
beach house several blocks away.

All in all, I think she had a good time, as I did.

Regards,
Wayne & Gucci

-- 
My blog:
http://wayneism.blogspot.com
My websites:
www.wayneism.com
www.whitecaneday.org




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