July/August 2005

A Dog’s Life

Fetching Sticks at the Beach is Some Easy Livin’

By Larry Maddry

Dogs and beaches seem to go together. Everyone knows we’re blessed with great beaches in Hampton Roads. But we also have great dogs that enjoy romping over sand and splashing through water.

But the dogs do get into trouble. So, maybe it’s best to look the other way and pretend you don’t know your Lab retriever when he bounces out of the surf and gives his body a vigorous shake. Especially if the hundreds of droplets propelled from his coat soak a little old lady out for a stroll in her fancy walking shorts and collared shirt.

On hot days like these, it’s only natural for dogs to dig away the hot surface of the beach and scratch their way down to cooler sand. However, if the dog is very big and fairly smart, the digging will inevitably lead to trouble.

While sitting in a beach chair reading, be aware that your chair casts a shadow. Your large dog —or one near you—will inevitably be drawn to the coolness of that chair shadow.

I have seen Labs and Chesapeake Bay retrievers dig holes large enough to contain 100-gallon oil drums behind beach chairs. So be careful. It is estimated that for the past five years in Hampton Roads, more than 150 people have fallen into dog holes behind their beach chairs. Fortunately, only a handful suffered serious injuries. Only one is reported missing.

So be careful. Screaming in a loud voice is advised as your chair falls backwards into a dog hole on the beach. And the screaming should be continued when you reach the bottom—it will help rescuers locate you.

It was not my intention to badmouth dogs in this column but to celebrate them—despite the cautionary advice above. We have so many interesting dogs in Hampton Roads, and I’m sure you know or own a great beach dog yourself.

In my neighborhood at Chick’s Beach, I have watched some truly special dogs do their stuff over the years. One was a white terrier named Hap who rode a surfboard. Hap didn’t surf with a lot of flair. He looked like a white dog sculpture on the front of the board.

He flexed his legs as the owner set him on top of the board, ears erect, a look of determination in his dark eyes. Hap rode the board to the beach, then jumped off and began barking, which meant he wanted to go again.

Nearly all dogs hanging out on beaches are good fetchers of balls and sticks. I once saw a lady with one of those devices that looks like a pasta stirrer but slings tennis balls farther out in the bay than you can by hand.

She had a palm slick with suntan oil, and the device slipped from her hand as she was tossing a ball into the bay. Proved to be no problem. One dog swam for the ball. The other leaped through the surf and swam after the fetching device.

Until she died over a year ago, my dog Mabel, a cocker spaniel, was obsessive about bringing sticks home from the beach, even on the hottest days.

Once she got the stick in her mouth, Mabel would make a beeline for our condo and wouldn’t stop, her legs scissoring over the sand with great purpose. There was a thousand-yard stare in her eyes, and she picked up speed as she carried the stick closer and closer to home.

The bigger the stick the better, Mabel felt. She weighed only 25 pounds but once carried a piece of driftwood larger than a piano leg for two miles to our condo door. Once she got the huge stick home, she lost interest and only wanted to lie down.

A neighbor named Fred Blanchard owned an interesting dog named Polo. Polo was a mongrel, brown with white spots, who fetched sticks—but on his own terms. The dog was about the size of a breadbox with pointed ears and a short tail. An older dog, he moved slowly but steadily behind his master as we walked to the beach.

“Now watch this,” Frank said. He hurled a stick of driftwood about 40 feet down the beach.

Polo, who was about 15 years old, wagged his tail but ignored the tossed stick. Instead, he trotted over to the nearest stick of driftwood—about five feet away—and, after mouthing it, walked to where Frank stood and offered it to him.

I couldn’t help laughing. “Guess he does that because he’s so old, huh?” I wondered.

“No,” Frank said. “He’s done that all his life.”

I guess living a dog’s life can be easy if you know how. Polo sure did.