A Beach Surprise

The Phoebe Chronicles | A Dog's Memoir

Many of you have asked for me to write the “Phoebe” stories. Here is the first story from a new series that I am calling “The Phoebe Chronicles”. Enjoy!

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It was supposed to be a fun, wholesome activity – a trip to the beach with our new puppy before heading off to a Girl Scouts activity. We were five altogether – my husband, our young daughters, and one of their friends that had spent the night. The girls watched a Disney movie the night before and spent the morning eating pancakes and giggling. They were excited to play with the puppy and get their feet wet.

There were two choices where we could take them. My husband suggested Madison Park beach, which was frequented by families and children. It was a good idea. But our yellow lab puppy, Phoebe, was becoming a handful. At nearly 60 pounds, she overflowed with love and affection for strangers and had a larger-than-life appetite. Every picnic basket and sunbather would be at risk from our darling animal with razor sharp claws and puppy ‘shark’ teeth.

The small cove just south of Madison Park would be better, I argued. The area was more contained, and the puppy could cause less trouble if she got loose. It also had a small grassy knoll just above the beach where the girls could play when they were done at the beach. My husband disagreed and we went back and forth. But in the end, my stubborn streak won the day and he acquiesced.

It was early June, and the sun was shining. One couldn’t always count on such beautiful weather in Seattle, and I was grateful. I imagined our family, our daughter’s friend, and the puppy playing near the water’s edge, with girls happily jumping in the water. Later, I could tell the friend’s mother what a great time they had at the beach with the puppy. It would be a lovely end to the sleepover, which might lead to more sleepovers.

The first surprise came when I saw how many cars were parked near the cove. Perhaps, it is busier on the weekend, I thought. There had been no one there when we visited the cove on weekday evenings in the past. It seemed so secluded. I didn’t know that this many people even knew about it. Fortunately, my husband found a shady parking spot and the girls jumped out and began running toward the beach.

Our puppy will be so happy to swim. I was delighting in the thought of seeing our golden furball as the back door of the SUV lifted. But before we could get our hands on her collar, she jumped out between our legs and took off into a grove of trees.

That little rascal! I ran after the yellow blur in my flip flops, cursing my shoes and hoping I didn’t lose sight of her or fall on my face. The girls were now standing and pointing behind a big tree. When I reached the tree, I found her vigorously rubbing her body against something on the ground.

“It’s a dead squirrel!” yelled one of the girls. For the love of Pete! I grabbed her collar as the smell was hitting my nostrils and pulled her off the carcass. A wave of nausea came over me as I pulled her away from the tree. The only stroke of luck was that she hadn’t begun to eat the squirrel. I shuddered.

It was just last week that my husband nearly required a trip to the emergency room for antibiotics. The puppy had nipped him through his pants and redness had started to rapidly spread around the small wounds. I quickly wrote him a prescription for antibiotics, while thinking of how foul the dog’s mouth truly was. And that was before she rolled in the dead squirrel.

“Can you find her leash?” I asked my husband, who seemed to be searching the car. He turned around and shrugged. But then raised an arm with something else in it. An old, fraying belt that was unexpectedly in the backseat.

We would make it work as a makeshift leash. It was better than taking the girls home before they could enjoy their time at the beach. We threaded the belt through the collar and began walking our puppy down the grassy slope to the beach. The sun was shining. We couldn’t have picked a more perfect day and my mood was rising.

Halfway to the water, I must have noticed something out of my peripheral vision. My husband did too and stopped walking. He squeezed my hand twice and then called for the girls that we needed to leave the beach.

I turned my head slightly to the left and caught a glimpse of a sunbather out of the corner of my eye.

Oh. My. God. He’s naked, I thought.

As the realization of his nudity hit me, something else compounded my horror.

All the sunbathers were naked.

“Come on, we need to go!” my husband was yelling. Phoebe must have sensed my distraction and chosen this moment to give a Herculean tug that broke my hold on the makeshift leash. She bounded into the crowd, gaining speed, with a remnant of the plastic belt still hanging from her collar.

“Scat, dog, scat!” yelled a man about 20 feet away as he began scrambling to stand up. As he got up, I couldn’t help noticing the motion around his private parts. In fact, I had never seen a man’s private areas flying about so freely in the open sunshine.

“Phoebeeeeeeeeee!” I screamed and lunged in her direction but was a good ten feet behind her.

The entire crowd was gripped with fear and starting to move. Private parts were flying high, jiggling and jongling about, as people jumped to their feet upon sensing danger.

There was no time to think before reacting. I dove onto the ground to grab the animal’s back legs but missed. She was already leaping into the air to land on a sunbather.

“Phoebe just licked a guy’s butt!” cried one of my girls.

Her words hardly had time to register before I managed to grab a yellow leg and get my hands around her collar. With some difficulty, I managed to get up while holding the makeshift leash – which was much shorter now – and guiding the mischievous, little animal towards the car.

But as we were walking up the grassy knoll, there was a lone sunbather a few steps from our path that was still displaying their white, naked backside to the world. The rump was as white as a piece of printer paper with a few love handles to boot. I couldn’t quite believe that anyone would want to share this view with the world.

My youngest daughter was ahead of me and just as she passed this sunbather, I heard her high voice, clear as a bell.

“That is the grossest thing I have ever seen in my entire life!” she said emphatically.

My cheeks reddened and I could feel my whole face flushing as I hurried her along our walk of shame past the sunbather. I don’t even remember the next 10 seconds on the way to the car or loading the puppy into the back. But when I got into the SUV and looked at my husband, he was speechless and shaking his head while starting the car.

“So, should we try the other beach then?” I asked.

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