June 29th - A day at the beach

Brian and Teresa were playing in a coed 2's sand volleyball tournament today, and Teresa thought the beach didn't allow dogs at all, so I decided I would take Kodo for a good long walk this morning to tire him out so I could run up to cheer for them for a couple hours in the afternoon without feeling guilty. So I took Kodo up to Huntington Beach for the first time. He had never been to the lake before, so I thought he would have a lot of fun with it. Unfortunately, I found out when I got there that they don't allow dogs on the beach there either! :( I think Kodo was disappointed- I kept telling him about the sand and the water all the way there, and once we got there he kept pulling toward the stairs as if he wanted to go down to the beach. :) And he kept sniffing the wind to enjoy all the new smells!!
Since we couldn't go down to the water, we wandered along the all-purpose trails instead. While we were exploring one of the side paths that meandered through the trees, my cel rang. It was Brian, and he was calling to tell me which net they were on, and also that dogs were allowed on the Boardwalk area next to the courts, just not on the beach itself. I decided I was going to keep walking Kodo for a bit until he tired out a bit more and see what happened from there.
As we walk, I like to watch the people we pass, because I love watching the faces of the dog-lovers light up when they see him.. :) We also got a couple of the usual questions about his breed, age, weight, etc. which I am more than happy to answer.. Along the path we passed a beautiful husky that Kodo decided he wanted to be new best friends with.. but other than that he was very well-behaved on the walk, since I was holding a tube of string cheese to keep him in line.. :) It was fairly cool for late June with a nice breeze going, but he still ended up tiring out after about an hour. So I took him back to the car and home, where he collapsed on the kitchen tile and went to sleep.
After about a half hour, I struggled to wake him up enough to get him out to the car. We went to the tournament and watched Teresa and Brian play a couple matches. We sat on a sandy slope that was lightly covered with grass. Kodo's butt kept sliding down the hill cuz it was a little too much of an incline for him- and at one point he made the mistake of lying on his side with his feet extended uphill and overbalanced enough so he rolled end over end!! He got a bunch of sand and grass eating in too, which made him really happy! And every time people came up to visit with him he gave them wet sandy kisses. Fortunately, most of them were there for the tournament and were already wet and sandy, so they didn't seem to mind.

All-in-all, a very busy day for the puppy!!!