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| Bounding about in the waves |
On Sunday morning, we decided to head down to Paraparaumu Beach to frolic in the sand and the waves. For those keeping track, that is a visit to two different beaches in one day for our Greyhound friend – which made for a very tired girl that night – but the weather was so good that we couldn’t resist the opportunity.
We were out visiting the Kapiti Coast for various mum-related birthday celebrations. Both M and I grew up taking dogs to the beach (me with German Shepherds at Himatangi, and later Waikanae Beach, and M with his Waimaraner at Pararaparaumu Beach) – so it felt like a good time to renew the tradition and introduce Mila to the sights and sounds of the ocean.
When we got there, the change in Mila was obvious – everything was so different to our home in Karori. First it was the smell of the sea air, then it was the shells and the dune grass, the feeling of soft sand underfoot, the seagulls, the drift wood and…ALL THAT WATER!! What was going on?!
Not surprisingly, all of the nice, calm walking that we had been faithfully practicing went out the window at this point. There were too many things to be sniffed, pawed at and watched for a greyhound to be paying any attention to what I had to say. After the novelty of the sand had worn off a bit, it was down into the water where there was running and jumping and splashing and also a bit of intentionally trying to get me as wet as possible. It didn’t really help that M was standing (nice and dry) back up on the beach, doing his best to rark Mila up and make sure that my pants had absolutely no chance of staying dry.
Unfortunately, we are not quite at the stage where we are able to let Mila off the lead with the confidence that she will come back to us when we call her (any tips????). I’m pretty certain that she wouldn’t take the opportunity to run away from us completely – but when there are other dogs, seagulls, fish and possum traps in the sand dunes – the risk of her getting herself into trouble is just too high to take at the moment (even with a muzzle on). The Kapiti Beaches are supposed to be on-lead anyway, so you can imagine the trouble I would get into if I let Mila off and she managed to destroy something important…they get penguins around there, you know!
Here are some pics of our adventures at the beach. As you can see, there was a lot of running and getting wet (and quite a few ‘c’mon! why are you being SO slow??’ looks from Mila as I did my best to keep up).
We were out visiting the Kapiti Coast for various mum-related birthday celebrations. Both M and I grew up taking dogs to the beach (me with German Shepherds at Himatangi, and later Waikanae Beach, and M with his Waimaraner at Pararaparaumu Beach) – so it felt like a good time to renew the tradition and introduce Mila to the sights and sounds of the ocean.
When we got there, the change in Mila was obvious – everything was so different to our home in Karori. First it was the smell of the sea air, then it was the shells and the dune grass, the feeling of soft sand underfoot, the seagulls, the drift wood and…ALL THAT WATER!! What was going on?!
Not surprisingly, all of the nice, calm walking that we had been faithfully practicing went out the window at this point. There were too many things to be sniffed, pawed at and watched for a greyhound to be paying any attention to what I had to say. After the novelty of the sand had worn off a bit, it was down into the water where there was running and jumping and splashing and also a bit of intentionally trying to get me as wet as possible. It didn’t really help that M was standing (nice and dry) back up on the beach, doing his best to rark Mila up and make sure that my pants had absolutely no chance of staying dry.
Unfortunately, we are not quite at the stage where we are able to let Mila off the lead with the confidence that she will come back to us when we call her (any tips????). I’m pretty certain that she wouldn’t take the opportunity to run away from us completely – but when there are other dogs, seagulls, fish and possum traps in the sand dunes – the risk of her getting herself into trouble is just too high to take at the moment (even with a muzzle on). The Kapiti Beaches are supposed to be on-lead anyway, so you can imagine the trouble I would get into if I let Mila off and she managed to destroy something important…they get penguins around there, you know!
Here are some pics of our adventures at the beach. As you can see, there was a lot of running and getting wet (and quite a few ‘c’mon! why are you being SO slow??’ looks from Mila as I did my best to keep up).
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| This is SO much fun!! |
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| Reluctantly back to dry land |
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