It's a Dog's Life: Beach Days

Summer offers many different treats for canines; Teddy is particularly fond of a beach day, especially if it's a sandy one, as human translator Helen Stockton explains.

We dogs like different landscapes, but perhaps our favourite is a beach. People seem quite keen on them too. So it’s handy, with the UK being an island nation, that you are never more than 70 miles from the sea. And Sussex is blessed with a long stretch of coastline offering plenty of walking opportunities for the county’s dogs.

Now I don’t want to seem ungrateful for this natural abundance, but I’m not keen on the pebbly ones. They are not very comfortable on your paws. At our local beach, the apprentice, Bear, just scoots along regardless, but I stand looking pained, waiting for ‘Her Indoors’ to airlift me onto the nice sandy bit directly next to the sea. If it’s sand across the entire beach, so much the better. Ideally, we like them deserted too, so that we can run around without risking upsetting either people or other dogs. There are some lovely sandy beaches in Sussex, but we have a particular liking for those in Northumberland. After all, this is where Border Terriers, as a breed, come from, and you can walk for miles with only the occasional seal for company.

We’ve been to lots of great beaches in other parts of the country, but we sometimes find the rules and regulations a bit confusing. Dogs are often only allowed on certain beaches at particular times of the year, but as beaches are generally a continuum, rather than distinct areas, it can be difficult to work out where one section ends, and another begins. This is especially true if you are not local.

When we were on holiday last year, ‘Her Indoors’ was puzzling over the various signs, triangulating them with ‘Him Indoors’ Ordnance Survey App, to try and work out where we were allowed to go. It didn’t help that a few folk with dogs appeared to be just ignoring the signs anyway. ‘Her Indoors’ is not a natural rule-breaker and, because she tries to stick to them, if she occasionally transgresses, even innocently, she will, inevitably, be caught and fined. This is an indisputable fact within our family. She has been fined twice whilst parking in free car parks, which is a particular achievement if you look at it in the right, or is that the wrong, way. Anyway, she couldn’t work the beaches out, bless her, and as the fine was £100 and there were two of us, she decided not to risk it. Whilst we weren’t allowed to be bathing beauties on that occasion, we have high hopes of our local beach sometime this month. It is the holiday month after all, so watch out seagulls, here we come!