Salt marsh at Hammanasset State Park

Emma beats the wave!

Will gets the stick before the wave gets him

Will and Emma run the rock pier (or is that one dog with two heads?)

Favorite pastime: chasing the stick

Emma scans for birds

Beach toys, even in winter

More Winter Fun

Where there's a beach, there can be fun! It doesn't matter if it's winter, if there's snow somewhere on the ground, as long as it isn't too cold. The good thing about living in CT is that you're not far from just about any type of activity or terrain that you want. We live just in the north central part of the state, which means we are about an hour away from the closest sandy shoreline. Our favorite place to go is Hammanasset State Park, where you can walk the boardwalk or the trails, and can get onto the beach with dogs, but only if it's almost deserted like it is at this time of year. Actually, on a sunny day in the winter, there's a surprising number of people that head to the shore. Maybe we are all ready for summer, or just have cabin fever and can hardly wait till summer to get out to enjoy the sun and sand.

Our border collies just love the beach. They run along the sand, but try to stay away from the breaking waves. Jim tried to get them close to the water by throwing their stick just into the edge of the wave and they would creep up as far as they had to to get the stick. Emma was the bravest. Will was reluctant to get involved, but did finally creep in to capture the stick. They much preferred to run the sandy beach, and then along the giant rocky pier built out into the water. The waves didn't bother them there, because they were well above them.

One thing, though, we've noticed that Will has been scratching himself pretty seriously since our trip to the beach. We're not sure if he got bit, or got sand fleas (we can't see anything), or maybe got into something else. Emma isn't bothered by it, so we don't know if it's from the beach or just dry skin. Border collies apparently have dry skin, so maybe we should try giving him something to treat that.