The Beach

Rubin is a Labradoodle, which means that he is part Lab (about a 1/3) and part Poodle (about 2/3). Both breeds like the water and it seems as if the combination of lab and poodle have had an exponential effect on his love of water.

This weekend we went to a friend's 40th birthday party in Port Townsend. They live on the beach or near it and so we wandered down and let the dogs play. They have one dog now, but when I first met them, they shared their home with three dogs -- two cockers and a big, burly dog with the kindness eyes known to dogkind.

But now there is just Buster, pictured above attempting to tolerant Rubin's need to get wild whenever he is near the water.

Visiting, though, was another dog, a yellow lab, named Dali and Rubin did whatever he could to engage either adult dog in any kind of play.

Ari, one of Buster's moms, took the photos and when she sent them to us she wrote: Notice how many of the pictures have Rubin half in the frame or just leaving it.

Yes, the boy has energy to spare, but that energy seems even more pronounced at the beach.

This is my favorite picture from the series. Buster has finally claimed Rubin's rubber ball and if you look closely, you can see Buster is snarling at Rubin. Meanwhile, Rubin is not paying attention to the warning signals and shortly after this picture was snapped, was chased down the beach by a growling, grunting Buster who felt extremely threatened by Rubin's dance of excitment illustrated so perfectly in this picture.

Eventually, though, Rubin settled down and Buster felt safe enough to approach. Here is the result...

It was a wild weekend. By the time we got into the car and headed home, Rubin fell asleep like a wet rag in the back of the car -- flat on his back, his legs stretched out.

It's not such a bad dog's life...