Pups to the Beach

After living much of their lives in the midwest, our pups had never seen the ocean or a beach. We spent a couple days before Thanksgiving down in Nags Head and took Nina and Nixon to the beach a few times. We really hoped they both would love it. Our first 10 seconds on the beach were like pure ecstasy to the dogs and then Nina realized that a huge ocean with angry waves was after her and she bolted to the highest dune she could find and refused to budge. Meanwhile, Nixon resumed his obsession with anything that moves and darted after every bird on the beach until it seemed like he was a mile away. So there we were...one dog stuck on the dunes with posted signs all over prohibiting anyone from walking on them for fear of erosion and the other dog running mad down the beach. After we somehow got them both within arms length, we put them on their leashes -- not that it made that much of a difference as Nixon pulled and pulled to go after everything in sight and Nina put on the emergency brake and refused to make a single step. It was cold and windy but we decided to come back a day or two later to take some beach pics hoping for a Christmas card pic...so much for that, but at least we got a family portrait of sorts. Maybe their next trip to the beach will yield better results.