That's one thing we like about living in County Durham - we have really lovely beaches on our doorstep.
This blogpost is simply about me posting some of the many photos that I took of our gorgeous boy - with a bit of rambling about our morning on the beach.
As you can see the weather was dull, which is why the last two are photos from another day on a different beach - gotta have some bright sunny shots too.
I'd like to upload the video I shot too, but I can't figure out how to get if from my phone to this blog - oh well, maybe another day. I'll ask Mr.R to show me how to do it, he's the clever one on our family.
Anyway, so, we were off to the beach, but this day we decided to go to a different beach from the one we usually visit, which turned out to be an excellent decision.
We'd spoken to a neighbour about this particular beach, he has 6 dogs, Bull Terriers, and he was saying how it's been tarted-up a bit recently. Well, not the beach so much, but the car-park and woods before you get down to the beach.
We'd attempted to take Barley to this beach once before, but the road was seriously flooded so we couldn't get anywhere near. After that, we'd forgotten all about this beach, until the neighbour mentioned it.
Anyway, bright and early one morning last week, all three of us jumped into the car and off we went to the beach.
It's only a few minutes drive from our house, in fact we were going to walk there, but the weather wasn't looking good so we changed our minds and drove. That also turned out to be a good decision, as although it's not far, the walk from the car-park down through the woods to the beach was a little longer than we'd expected.
And on a dull cold day, after running, playing, and generally having lots of fun on the beach, having the car waiting to take us back to the house was much appreciated. I doubt our legs could have carried if we'd had to walk, but I'm sure Barley would disagree as he's always happy for more exercise.
So, we parked up, and enjoyed the walk through the woods down to the beach.
We were not particularly expecting to be able to let Barley off of the lead, we thought there's be other people and dogs on the beach, and as yet Barley is not a fan of recall - despite obedience training and lots of hard work, he still likes to do his own thing.
As soon as we got on to the beach we could see it was completely empty, and the sandy part beyond the rocks was much wider and longer than we'd thought it would be.
We let Barley off the lead. He was off! Zooming around all over the beach, a very happy boy.
Mr.R stopped every now and then to take some photos, not that the weather was doing anything to enhance the dark drab colours of the sea and sand.
I also took some photos and shot a bit of video.
But mainly we were playing with Barley, which consisted of me running up and down the beach with Barley running after, and at me, almost knocking me off of my feet on several occasions.
Unfortunately for Barley, because we hadn't expected to be able to let him run free, we hadn't taken his football or tennis balls, or any of his other toys with us - which is why he had to make do with me running about like a loon.
He wasn't bothered though, he was more than happy, running, sniffing, nipping, and generally having a blast to care about absent footballs.
Since we adopted Barley, about a year and a half ago, we have seen him run full-pelt in the local fields, and on the beaches, or so we thought.
This day we saw what full-pelt really was. Barley had been zooming about for ages, and he was quite tired, which meant he'd take the occasional short break and stroll nearer to us. It was after a short minute or so break, that I saw something had caught his attention, and before I had a chance to react he was off.......
He ran so fast, my eyes could hardly keep track of him. What was he running after? A seagull!
Obviously, as seagulls fly, Barley didn't catch it, but he got seriously close to nabbing it before the seagull took off skywards.
Man, watching his run is such a wonderful thing to see, it's breathtaking the speed, his muscles, and then the joy on his face. Absolutely marvelous!
After the seagull incident, we all continued to mooch about on the sand, and as time went on Mr.R and I were getting further apart from each other, which meant Barley was zooming from one of us to the other like a dog possessed.
It was when he'd been running circles around me that he suddenly shot off towards Mr.R. This was also when I spotted a figure with a dog far off in the distance.
Oh dear!
I shouted to Mr.R to call Barley. He did. Barley was obviously temporarily deaf at this point, as he ignored Mr.R and ran full-pelt towards the figure, which I could now see was a man with a Lurcher.
I started running after Barley, that may not be what the 'experts' recommend, but I know my dog and this was the best thing to do at that time.
Anyway, I was running after Barley calling him, but apparently he couldn't hear my voice either, and Mr.R was calling him too.
He was seriously close to the man with the Lurcher, when suddenly he stopped, literally skidding to a halt.
The man hadn't said anything or done anything, but Barley had stopped, and then he turned around, looked at me and Mr.R and began running back to us. Phew!
I like to think that he had heard us calling him, and was responding to us.
But Mr.R thinks he just changed his mind about wanting to play with the man and his dog.
I'm still convinced I'm correct - Barley and recall are becoming friends. Hehehe!
The man we'd seen was obviously hoping to let his dog off the lead too, so we put Barley back on his lead and began a slow walk back to the car. All three of us were exhausted.
Once we'd got off of the sand and up on to the rocks we saw the man had let his Lurcher off lead and was using a whistle to train him to stay, return etc.
Typically when Barley heard the man use his whistle he was all ears, paying keen attention. It's a shame Barley isn't as interested in our whistle - maybe it's not working properly and only humans can hear it. Hahaha!
If you're a human owned by a dog, do you have a beach where you enjoy running, playing, and having fun together?
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