WEDNESDAY, 29 APRIL 2015
One thing I know the dogs are happy about is the return of the WHIPPING CREAM ritual . . . (Note the PINK shirt and the PINK diapers.) Later in the day, we pick up gyros at GYRO KING (two for one on Wednesdays; how do you think we pay for these renovations?) and go to Crystal Beach to eat them. We see that DOGS ARE ALLOWED HERE!
	So we drive right back home, harness and pack up the dogs, some towels, our aqua shoes, their crates (this is starting to feel like bringing along babies . . . all these accessories that are so necessary!). Rosie's leash & harness are PURPLE; Daisy's are YELLOW; Rico's are RED; Heather's are ORANGE.
Rosie gets wet, then stands and shivers and shivers, so Neal brings her back to the car and now can take some photos . . .
Daisy takes to swimming like a duck to water, paddling her two front legs. (Heather swims on top of Daisy and gets stuck there.)
Heather, who is afraid of ANYthing new, just stands there. Can we go now, Mom? Why are we all in water? I wanna go . . . WHOA! LOOKIT THIS! IF I CHURN MY FRONT LEGS, I MOVE! THIS IS FUN!! Rico is an old hand at swimming; his fave thing to do is roll his wet self - including his face - in the sand, thus necessitating a trip back into the water to rinse off. The car smelled like we were bringing home SWAMP THING (you make the car stink), and it took us two hours to wash the dogs, clean the crates and the car, but a good time was had by all. We will do this again; we just have to find a more efficient way to do it. Luckily, Crystal Beach is only ten minutes from the house, so we can experiment often. The Skrenninger Quartet always garners so much attention . . . one person stayed with us & talked & talked & talked the entire time we were there! Next time, I hope to be able to concentrate more on them . . . but I always get to 'plug' rescue. (Imagine the attention if we still had ChrissiOneEye & Luuceee.) As usual, there is ONE person who believes that rules are for everyone but him, so has a HUMONGOUS dog off leash. Daisy, who thinks SHE is humongous, wants to challenge him. We manage to distract her. And THAT is why I don't like to go to dog parks & dog beaches. But, I will persevere . . . and tell off anyone who lets his dog get near ours, particularly as I don't vaccinate except for rabies. There are other beaches in the area where the dogs can join us, but they are farther away and/or charge fees; this seems to be the best one for the furkids, at least for the time being. NONE of the beaches allows dogs off-leash, although Rico is the only one I'd trust to come back . . . he KNOWS no one else would put up with him!

WE'VE BEEN SCALPED! HERE