Popham Beach Pup Day

Lady Flame, Skyy, Bear Bear, Cola, Toby

What a lovely spring day for a gathering of hounds at Popham Beach! 

We met the Axels with their pups Skyy and Bear Bear. Wade and his sweet old hound, Cola, came along with the Axels. 

The tide was going out, as we walked toward the ocean's edge, and the pups left their paw prints in the sand.

We followed some horses as we meandered toward Fox Island.

The horses were gorgeous and the pups were rather interested in them, as always!  

Wade and Cola posed for photos near the base of Fox Island.

And, then Bille posed with Skyy, Cola, and Bear Bear.

Everyone climbed up Fox Island to look around. 

Up at the top of the island, there are photo ops galore, and it is so pretty.

Eventually, Toby had to come back down to join me as the uneven surfaces of the rocks, as seen here, are a hazard to a blind dog.

After the beach walk, we had lunch in the park before heading back to the cars. Here you see Cola, Skyy, and Bear Bear sitting pretty before heading for home.

Popham Beach Pups

Oh my goodness...what a wonderful day we had! With the promise of warm weather, we headed for the beach. Toby is quite the backseat driver and was interested in where we were headed.

Because the fog was heavy, we actually planned our arrival for an hour after low tide in hopes of the fog lifting. There were already around 25 cars parked outside the park entrance (whose gates are closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the winter season.)

As you can see, the fog had not lifted and was quite thick. In fact, Fox Island was enclosed in fog and we had no idea where it was!

So, we took some time to gaze out at the ocean. Toby had a tough time navigating (being blind does that to a pup), and he tended to use Lady Flame as a marker post by periodically leaning on her and bumping into her.

Flame was loving the ocean smells and sounds. The coolness of the weather (around 38F) caused her to want to run around on the beach.

Of course, since we haven't practiced any recall with her, she had to be kept on leash. But, that only slowed our pretty princess down a tiny bit. She was jazzed to the max!

Neither Drew nor I have knees that are fully functioning anymore, so we couldn't oblige Flame for very long. But, she had a grand time nonetheless.

After walking along the shore for awhile, we realized that we had no idea where we were. You see, the tide was coming in and it is easy to get cut off from the dune area if you wait too long. So, we reconnoitered inland a bit, over what looked like a windswept, alien landscape to get our bearings before heading toward the fort.

The waves were so pretty, and with this section of beach being narrow we found ourselves in the surf a bit. 

Not wanting to get cut off on this beach, we headed back toward the park. In doing so, we saw Fox Island rising from the fog, sort of... It was almost noon, and the fog was taking it's time to burn off.

Check out all the cars along the road on our way home! We figured that there must have been at least 100 cars outside the gate, and we are so glad that we enjoyed the beach early. By the way, the temp. had risen to about 50F by the time we left the beach. Balmy for sure!

Popham Beach with the hounds

The air temp. was 52F and it was a perfect day to bring the hounds to the beach. We were there with a slew of other Mainers with the same idea!

First, we had to traverse the snow-covered beach to get to the ocean's edge. 

It was a relief to finally reach the sand. You can see horses and dogs in the distance.

ZuZu, the Bernese Mountain pup, was our favorite dog of the day. As you can see,Toby was quite taken with her.

Zuzu seemed fascinated by Toby, although she probably couldn't figure out why he wasn't in play pose. He just couldn't see her! 

She continued to vie for his attention, but to no avail. At least Toby was pleasant with her and did not growl or snap. We got a few good pets in on her and she was the fluffiest dog we have ever touched!

We then walked over to the base of Fox Island where we hung out in a warm, sheltered area for awhile.

From there we roamed the beach in search of Lady Flame's favorite animals... horses! Lady was fascinated by all the horses who shared the beach with us. Her nose was to the ground in their hoof prints from place to place, and her ears perked up upon seeing them in the distance.

It was our obligation to follow them out to the ocean's edge.

We spent a few minutes enjoying the sound of the waves lapping at the shore. 

Eventually, Lady Flame told us that it was time to head for home. She sure is expressive with that tongue of hers! "Phttttt....If I can't eat any horse poop then I want to go home and eat my afternoon carrot!"

Popham Beach Group Photo

Left to right:
Sheila and Skyy, Veronica with Bettina and Dennis, Kristin with Herschel,
Drena with Honor?, Carol with Love and Melissa, Drew with Lady Flame,
Kent with Stari, and Jeremy with Freedom and Valor
(Click on the photo for an enlarged view.)

Photo by Bille Axell, Axell Photography.

Popham Beach Greyhound Meet-up

We had a wonderful Greyhound Meet-up at Popham Beach. This video is dedicated to Sheila, the energizer bunny of the Meet-Up, as she frolicked with the pups in the surf! Kristin also braved the water for a quick foray into the surf with Herschel and Skyy;-) Fun, fun, fun! The video ends with a "Happy Birthday Howl-Out" to Bettina!

Present were the following Greyhounds and their people:

• Freedom, Valor, and Honor who brought Jeremy and Drena.
• Herschel who brought Kristin.
• Stari, Love, and Melissa who brought Carol.
• Bettina and Dennis who brought Veronica.
• Skyy who brought Bille, Sheila, and Kent.
• Lady Flame and Toby who brought Drew and Laurie.

This adds up to 12 hounds and 10 humans.

2nd Annual Popham Beach Meet-Up

Drew, Veronica, and Carol untangle the first hounds to arrive at the beach!
This was Dennis' first beach visit and he was pumped to the max!
Bettina, Stari, Melissa, Love, Lady Flame, and Toby are
old hands at being beach bums!
(Click on any photo for a larger view.)

Whew! We met up with a bunch of our friends, both 2-legged and 4-legged, for an awesome walk on Popham Beach! (All photos are by Laurie and Drew Haines unless otherwise indicated.)

Kristin and Herschel arrived next. It was a pleasure to meet them on their
first visit to Popham Beach.

Bille, Sheila, and Kent arrived next with Skyy.
They were followed by Jeremy and Drena with their 3 loverly patriotic hounds:
Honor, Valor, and Freedom.

The hounds were so happy to see each other and we enjoyed welcoming new people to our big extended hound family. Bille (our favorite professional pet photographer) organized this shindig. We had a lovely expanse of low tide beach to walk, and walk we did!

Carol, our hound mentor (along with Veronica), has been walking the beach with various hounds for many years. She is like the pied piper of hounds...

Sheila adds a ton of spark and life to any party. She took it upon herself to run lots of hounds through the surf. Skyy is an old hand at running through the waves, but Lady Flame wasn't too sure about it;-)

We made our way toward Fox Island, which is located at the end of a sand bar at low tide.

Our goal was to climb up Fox Island for a photo shoot by Bille. The first stop was on part of the island that overlooked the beach. You can see Bille already at work;-)

Veronica, Bettina, and Dennis were the first to be photographed. Bettina happens to be one of Bille's first Greyhound crushes, and she absolutely adores him back! (Mind you, this is my quick snapshot, not Bille's professional one. See his on Axell Photography.)

Even Toby took a turn at being photographed! Bille got a great photo of our biggie boy;-) But, this was as far as we could take Toby on the rocks. It is too difficult for Toby to navigate all the uneven surfaces, as he is mostly blind, and he cannot see where his foot placement is. So, back down to the beach we went.

Lady Flame's coloration and patterning make her blend in perfectly
with the sand and rocks of Fox Island. She is our super model!

Toby is the most gorgeous greyhound we have ever seen.
He should be on the cover of GQ (Greyhound Quarterly;-)

So, we went down on the beach to photograph our pups and to get some video of the ocean waves. I love photographing our hounds. They are both easy on the eyes, and I practiced holding onto their leashes while using my new wide-angle lens to see if I could get their entire body into the shot.  Success;-)

Kent assisted Carol with her hounds up on the island.

A gaggle of hounds on the island granite. They get along so well that
they don't hesitate to rest their heads upon each other's backs;-)

After a short time, Drew took Lady Flame back up onto the island to hobnob with the rest of the hounds. He got a few snapshots and participated in a greyt group photo by Bille.

Then, it was time to head back down to the beach for some water time! 

Skyy and Stari were the first to romp in the waves with Sheila.

Skyy is an official water dog!

Sheila had a blast with more hounds as she frolicked through the waves. She had us laughing continuously...

Dennis and Bettina lead the way back along the sand bar.

We had to keep an eye on the incoming tide as the sand bar gets covered at high tide. So, it was time to start heading back to the "beach proper."

This horse was incredibly tolerant of the gaggle of hounds.

Stari is fascinated by the horse.

We met a gorgeous horse on our journey along the sand bar. The hounds were fascinated with this big 4-legged beastie!

Stari couldn't contain himself and had to sample the horse's big schnoz, much to everyone's surprise;-)

Freedom and Valor were especially interested in the horse, and were better behaved around it than Stari;-)

Our lunchtime feast was calling to us, so we headed back down the beach to the picnic area.

Happy Birthday, Queen Bettina!

We were being constantly reminded, by Bettina, that it was her "barkday" (birthday), and that we were supposed to celebrate it with gusto, which we did!