Hello friends. As hump day comes to an end, we hope everyone is well midweek and keeping cool during this long hot summer month. Thankfully, our handsome hot dogs have kept cool by visiting our local dog-friendly beaches. Beach days with the dogs are always super fun for us, and we’re big advocates that we enjoy ourselves responsibly.

I believe technically many (if not most) of Southern California’s dog-friendly beaches are “on-leash” — though many of us, especially in the Santa Barbara county, often let them roam “off-leash” while usually being super respectful of others.

However, we have a very specific practice we follow. This is how we like to do it. We often start on-leash as we carefully survey the shoreline and checkout our surroundings i.e., see who’s there. Also, when we first arrive our happy hounds are usually really excited to be there, so I find it particularly smart to keep them under control until I’m confident and comfortable with the beach we’re at. We often walk the along the shoreline for the first 10-20 minutes upon arriving. The walk helps to tired them slightly, and allows me to properly take stock of who AND what’s there. As you can see from the video, it’s very common for us to see other big dogs and even horses. 🙂

Once we claim a little patch of sand for ourselves and it’s free of other big dogs, horses, people, etc. we let the hounds loose — while always staying mindful of our surroundings and the people coming and going. After Rufus was attacked last year, we’ve become pretty regular with our routine. It’s just better to err of the side of safety then put anyone’s loved one at risk.

Nonetheless, we thought it’d be fun to share our a little snippet from our Summerland beach excursion this week. Please note the many tail wags; all of those wiggle butts represent some very happy dogs. Our trio can be a little vocal in public sometimes, especially our little nervous Lily and her big sister Emily. AND as we all know, once one starts to bark, they all like to join in. Ha!

Enjoy the video friends, and let us know if your dachshund(s) ever get a chance to visit the beach, and if so, what’s the experience like for them and you!??? I know many hounds act like they’ll melt if the water gets too close, but there’s so much more to a beach than the ocean. We’ve found the sun, sand and smells are equally entertaining for our darling dachshunds as anything. 🙂