A SUNNY DAY AT THE BEACH

Mom finally posted the Kreativ Blogger award we received. But she didn't do a very good job. Not one of her best efforts. She started it on May 8 and finished it today. We have been on some trips so to be fair she didn't have a lot of time to work on forwarding it. However, - - - it showed up on our blog under May 8. She tried to change dates but didn't manage to get it done. She thanks you for your patience. She will improve. Now the fun stuff for today !!! This is a picture of the hillside where we had to follow a trail to the beach. It is nice because it has a lot of twists and turns (Mom calls them switchbacks). We get to do a lot of sniffing.

The tide was out a long way. This old driftwood tree is always here and must be deep in the sand because it never has moved. We sure enjoyed sniffing it.

That's me in the front of the picture, Sammy carrying his stick toy, a black lab named Maggie, and Sasha using her search technique looking for smells under the water. Mom has said maybe we should have trained her on underwater search since she likes it so much.

With the tide out we can go a long way before having to swim.

Mom finally threw one far enough so I could go out into the deeper water and swim to fetch it.

Sammy sure does swim well for a little Jack Russell. He decided to take a short rest from all the swimming to get in a bit of chewing.

It was a warm day and we met lots of friends and new friends at the beach. Going from front of picture to the back --- Me (Ernie), Chloe a yellow lab, Molly a beautiful German Shorthair Pointer and Sasha.

We can't stay away from this dead tree. When we got tired of swimming we would take a break and check it out to see if anything had changed.

Molly running with her ears flopping. Mom gave her a bit of a massage when she cuddled into her. Shouldn't have done that. We thought she was going to go home with us. We wouldn't have minded but her human would have.

This handsome and regal looking fellow is named Nelson. He is a very large Rhodesian Ridgeback. Mom talked to his humans and they actually got him in South Africa. They said he didn't like to swim and would not probably go out any further than he was in this picture. But if there was a lion he would definitely get involved. However, he really watched all of us playing in the water. Such concentration he had. He was much bigger than other Ridgebacks Mom has seen around here. Finally when his humans started walking away he went out into the water until it was past his belly and picked up a stick. We think he was just getting into the fun of it all. By the way, he also enjoys a massage. He backed up to Mom and she gave him a bit of one. He stayed there for awhile. Massages are good!

The info below is taken from Wikipedia on Google. The Rhodesian Ridgeback is a dog breed indigenous to Southern Africa. Its European forebears can be traced to the early pioneers of the Cape Colony of southern Africa, who crossed their dogs with the semi-domesticated, ridged hunting dogs of the Khoisan people (referred to by the colonists as "Hottentots"). In the earlier parts of its history, the Rhodesian Ridgeback has also been known as Van Rooyen's Lion Dogs, the African Lion Hound or African Lion Dog—Simba Inja in Ndebele, Shumba Imbwa in Shona—because of their ability to distract a lion while awaiting their master to make the kill. The original breed standard was drafted by F.R. Barnes, in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (today known as Zimbabwe), in 1922. Based on that of the Dalmatian, the standard was approved by the South African Kennel Union in 1926.

The water was cool and really felt wonderful because the sun was warm. We stayed a long time and it was fun. We took our time going back up the trail and made sure we took our time and got in even more sniffs.

Have a great day and enjoy!!

Wags and Wiggles

Ernie & Sasha