beach dog

On Saturday, Nik and I took Lottie to the seaside for the first time. It being the Bristol Channel, the sea had run away, but that left a lot of flat sand for her to run about on.

Despite the profusion of caravan parks and holiday camps on the other side of the dunes that back Brean Sands, this late in the season the beach was still relatively quiet. We arrived mid afternoon and parked at the top of the beach in a row with a handful of other cars. The tide was far out but on its way back in, the sky was blue and the sun still held some warmth.

There was a cool breeze blowing in off the channel, and over to our left we could see a handful of kite buggies (I never knew that was a thing!) racing over the flat sands, so we walked in the other direction, out towards the rocky cliffs of the headland.

I like this beach. There's lots of room at low water, and you can see out over the channel to Cardiff on the Welsh shore, with the two Holms between. We used to bring the dogs here a lot. I used to stand on this shore and look out towards Steep Holm and Flat Holm beyond and dream about about sailing past those islands. And I've done that any number of times since; the thrill never gets old.

Brean is just over an hour down the motorway from home, but we've not been back down here for years. We're only allowed to take dogs on the sands out of season, so I guess it was an easy habit to fall out of.

In other news, none of Jack's tests came back with anything to explain his arrhythmia. Which is kind of good news, although it doesn't rule out anything the admittedly limited resources of our local veterinary surgery might not have been able to spot at this stage. 

We had the option of referring him on to the veterinary college in Bristol for more tests, but he seems perfectly fine in himself, so we didn't want to put him through the stress of sending him away to a strange place overnight.

So he's on meds for a few weeks, after which we'll take him back for a check-up to see if things have improved and decide then on any further action to take, if any at this point.