Snyder Park in Fort Lauderdale has, like, THE best dog park. Not only does it have the usual run/play area, but there is a wooded, dirty area inside. And the best part? There's a lake where the dogs can go swimming.
I took them the day before yesterday. Since it was a weekday, there were very few people at the park, and NO ONE in the pond area. I like other dogs to be around, but it sure makes it less stressful to know I don't have to watch the girls like a hawk to make sure Maggie doesn't get provoked and Gretchey doesn't bark at other dogs and drive them crazy (she is, like, the police dog now - barks and barks at anyone "fighting".)
So anyway, Gretchey swam around, biting at things in the water, and even Maggie got in on the action and was wading in chest-deep to play. I waded in myself and pulled her a couple of feet out, so she had to swim back in. She swam all the way back in... even though the water was only like a foot deep. It was really funny.
The two successes were that Maggie got bullied by a big rottie mix who ended up standing over her as she was laying belly-up on the ground, and she just submitted. That and Maggie came in the water. I was so proud!
Then they ran in the dirt and got all dirty before we got back in the car. :) Gretchey looked so cute with the dirt and the water and all that, I had to get a pic before we left.
I'm Stacey. I'm a 31(!)-year-old Wisconsin girl living in sunny South Florida. The highlights in my life are my lovely boyfriend, my aloof cats, my adorable/adoring stepdogs, my two lumbering tortoises, select family members, being outside, being underwater, taking pictures, yadda yadda. Stay tuned for lots of babbling!
A small boy lived by the ocean. He loved the creatures of the sea, especially the starfish, and he spent much of his time exploring the seashore.
One day the boy learned there would be a minus tide that would leave the starfish stranded on the sand.
When the tide went out, he went down to the beach, began picking up the stranded starfish, and tossing them back into the ocean.
An elderly man who lived next door came down to the beach to see what the boy was doing. Seeing the man's quizzical expression, the boy paused as he approached. "I'm saving the starfish!" the boy proudly declared.
When the neighbor saw all of the stranded starfish he shook his head and said: "I'm sorry to disappoint you, young man, but if you look down the beach, there are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see. And if you look up the beach the other way, it's the same. One little boy like you isn't going to make much of a difference."
The boy thought about this for a moment. Then he reached his small hand down to the sand, picked up another starfish, tossed it out into the ocean, and said: "Well, I sure made a difference for that one!"
