Beach Dogs

Some of the happiest dogs I've met are beach dogs.  I discovered this on our recent trip to L. A. by which of course I mean Lower Alabama. We went there to get married.

My mother in law lives in a community called Josephine, northeast of Orange Beach, Alabama. Her home is on the water, in a network of inlets connected to Arnica Bay. And though she doesn't live on the beach, there is an unmistakably nautical feel to her house and its environs. Of course, the fact that there are three boats moored on the bayou in her backyard might have something to do with that. 

At the point where her little bayou enters Arnica Bay there is a small restaurant and marina known as Pirate’s Cove. Local lore dictates that the cheeseburgers made there were the inspiration for a certain musical son of a son of a sailor. I’ve eaten them, they’re good, but I’m more inspired by how happy my son is whenever we are at Pirate’s Cove. Just saying the name of the place brings a smile to his face and a sparkle to his eyes. One of the great things about Pirate’s Cove for TyTy is the resident dog, affectionately known as The Beast.

If you see this creature, the name will not be a mystery. The Beast is huge, and I use the word without any intention of hyperbole. This is just a massive dog. Her shoulder reaches my hips and her head is larger than a basketball and nearly as spherical. There seems to be some Mastiff blood in her because she is just one of the most solid-looking dogs I have ever seen. When you see her coming toward you, you almost expect to feel a tremor in the earth under your feet. Her paws are as wide as salad plates and as leathery as baseball mitts, and she has huge, nearly foot-long calluses on her ancient elbows. The Beast is a dog who demands the use of superlatives in her description.

We were headed to Pirate’s Cove this particular Friday morning on an errand that did not include cheeseburgers. We wanted to gather a small quantity of sand to be used in our wedding ceremony the next day. Of course we knew that there would more than likely be dogs, and that was all TyTy cared about, since it was really too chilly still for swimming. As we neared our destination, we saw a dog, a beautiful Golden Retriever, ambling along in a driveway near the road. She was standing near her owner who was talking on a phone. Of course TyTy wanted to stop but this is not how we do things. The dogs we put in the journal are supposed to be dogs met by chance, not by accosting obviously preoccupied or busy owners, and certainly not by stopping the car every time we see a dog on the side of the road. We rode on to Pirate’s Cove and sure enough, there were sand and dogs aplenty.

When we approached her, The Beast wagged her tail but didn’t move otherwise, content to reserve her energy for the rigors of rolling over to be petted. TyTy collapsed upon her in a combination hugging/petting maneuver, and she basked in his attention. There were a couple of other dogs too, but they waited their turn for pets, perhaps out of deference to The Beast. They got theirs in due turn. Reluctantly we left Pirate’s Cove; all three of us could easily have stayed all day. But we had urgent pre-wedding errands to run, not least of which was the purchase of the groom’s wedding ring.

Returning the way we had come, we saw the man with the Golden Retriever still hovering in the driveway. To our complete surprise he flagged us down. My husband, a local, didn’t recognize him. By that time the man arrived at my window and begged for a ride to a nearby marina.

“Of course,” was our reply.

“Can my dog come too?” He was almost plaintive. The drive was less than ten minutes, being only about four miles away, but the desperation in his voice was entirely understandable. Even though it was only mid-April and still not what I call swimming weather, the sun was high, the asphalt was hot, and his dog was big and shaggy. I hopped out of the car and opened the back hatch. As he got his dog to jump in the back, to the utter delight of TyTy, I made him a deal.

“We’ll give y’all a ride, but I have a favor to ask in return,” I said, smiling. Our new friend looked at me in confusion but mumbled, “ok….”

“I’ll need to take a picture of your dog with my son.” Such an innocuous and yet slightly bizarre request took him by surprise and he laughed and agreed. He was still laughing when we got back in the car and we all introduced ourselves. Buddy Boy, as the dog was named, introduced himself to TyTy by resting his head on the back of the seat, allowing himself to be petted and occasionally licking my son’s hand. I explained the dog project to his owner, who immediately gave us a short history of Buddy Boy’s life. One remarkable thing was that Buddy Boy was missing his left eye. It had been removed after being contaminated by the chemical dispersants used by BP in the Gulf for the removal of oil after the oil spill.

This was mind-boggling; it seems that no part of the Gulf of Mexico has remained untouched in some way by the spill, even now, a year afterwards. One of the boats moored at my in-laws’ house belongs to my husband’s brother who used to be the captain of a dolphin cruise boat. When the spill happened, he knew he would be out of work and decided to help BP with the clean-up. But now his boat has been ruined by the spill and BP has yet to settle his claim for repairs as they had promised to do. Many captains kept their boats in when BP asked for help fearing just such an occurrence, but my brother-in-law thought he was doing the right thing in helping to save the coast. He trusted BP when they promised to help him afterwards.

We didn’t have time to hear the full story of why Buddy Boy had been exposed to the dispersant, but his owner did tell us that they live on a houseboat and that his livelihood is made in buying old houseboats, refurbishing and selling them. Obviously this dog spends a lot of time near the water. He was certainly just one of several boat dogs we saw over the weekend. And, eye removal notwithstanding, he was obviously a happy dog, as all beach dogs should be.