Beach days aren’t supposed to cause tears, violence and chaos.
But such was life with the Meth Lab.
For Suzie, nothing – and I mean absolutely nothing – was
better than a trip to the dog beach. Even though it’s a half-hour drive from
our place, she always somehow knew when we were going, and to say it was a frenzied car
ride would be the understatement of the year.
She whirled. She twirled. She shivered with
excitement so much that the entire car shook. She bounced from the
passenger seat to the backseat to the passenger seat and tried her very best to
bounce into the driver’s seat.
You know, where I was sitting.
And driving.
Let’s just say there was usually blood loss, and no, don’t
worry.
It was only my blood.
All this was before we got to the parking lot.
There, I’d attempt to pull in and put the car into park as
she continued to catapult herself backwards, forwards and in front of the gear
shift, a blur of dust, dander, and black fur so thick that I could barely see
out the windows. I never put the leash on her before we got to the lot lest she
strangle herself in her maniacal glee during the ride, so once parked I had the
task of corralling 65 pounds of solid muscle enough to get her collar clipped.
And that was the easy part.
Once out of the car, she became a plane, a train, a
veritable Mach 1 automobile full of fur, teeth and claws, pulling me to the
beach with the force of a desert test drive. Pit bulls, Doberman pinschers, German
shepherds – they all stepped aside and huddled in fear as my relatively small mixed-breed
mutt barreled her way down the path, with me flying behind her like some sort
of useless human kite.
We’d eventually get to the sand where I’d unclip her collar, and it was there that all the mayhem was worth it.
The joy. The thrill. The
absolute euphoria. She felt exactly the same way about the beach as I did, and
so did the dozens of other dogs and their humans, all of us running around and
playing.
Those bloody-yet-somehow-awesome days were the inspiration
for my new children’s book, How to Be a Beach Dog, released today on
Amazon.
There will definitely be a dog who rolls in something disgusting and is proud of it.
Packed with laugh-out-loud moments and sun-drenched beach scenes illustrated by yours truly, How to Be a Beach Dog captures the beauty, wonder and joy of the shore, as well as two undeniable truths about dogs at the beach: they are having the best day of their lives, and they do not care if they get you wet.
That was definitely the case with the Meth Lab, even though
as the years wore on, she became cranky when the other beach dogs had the nerve to try
and greet her. Unbeknownst to us at the time, she’d developed a cancerous tumor on her
liver, and she was sore. We lost her about 18 months ago, at the age of 14.
Missing her bloody brand of anarchy all the way, I drove some of
her ashes to the dog beach last fall. I carried them into the water, and let her go.
I read somewhere that humans are 70 percent saltwater, that our blood plasma has almost the same chemical makeup as ocean water. Maybe it's the same for dogs, and that's why we all feel such a pull to the shore, such happiness, such peace. We have a literal ocean inside our bodies.
We are made of the sea.
I stayed at the beach for a while after saying goodbye to Suzie, watching the dogs and their
humans running around and playing again. I still go sometimes whenever I need a
pick-me-up. It’s impossible to be in a bad mood there.
Every beach is better with paw prints.
