Tails of the Travelin' Trio: Quick Sand?

(Camano Island, WA) Here you will see the debut of my new lens. I think it's too early to tell.

We went to one of our favorite places today. My friend Shari has a place on Camano Island that is one of my all time favorite places. It is so beautiful and it's a great place for the dogs to play off leash.

We hadn't been here since last year but that didn't stop the dogs from remembering where we were. After our arrival here today there was no doubt in our minds that this is Slugger's all time favorite place. We were still a couple miles away when Slugger started crying, whining, and barking. He kept it up the entire time until we got there and had driven the entire length of the property. I really didn't mind him being so happy - it was cute that he was so excited. But I really didn't want him teaching the puppy to start crying in the car. Somehow Boogie stayed still and quite until we had stopped and I let him out of his crate. What a good boy!

First stop of course had to be the pretty pond.

Slugger didn't even wait for his toy, he just jumped right in.

We threw a little stick in for Boogie to chase which he thought would be fun to chase until he realized he actually had to swim! Forget the stick - getting back to shore was all he had in mind.

He decided it would be a better idea to explore the pond via other means.

The water was way out today. Where you see land we most typically see covered with water. But it was clear enough today that we got a glimpse of Mt. Baker.

It was a warm and beautiful day - perfect for a walk down the dike. The dogs were each off running around doing their favorite activities. Surprisingly enough, Slugger didn't go in the mud. That's always been his favorite thing here. And with the water so low there was a LOT of mud here today. If you look on the near side of the picture and you see the light green grass - that is the water line when the tide is in.

Today Slugger seemed to prefer just digging in the dirt that was just above the mud line. Fine with me! He still managed to get his nose a little dirty.

Since this was Boogie's first time here, Slugger thought he'd better teach him the ropes. And Boogie was an eager student.

Sparkie thought since the water was so low that she'd jump across the slough. She made it over with plenty of room to spare. After running around for a few minutes she decided to be just as acrobatic coming back. Her plan was to jump down to the edge and spring up in one leap back to our side. Great plan...usually. She did this huge jump down and as she landed she was prepared for her huge spring across. But instead she sunk WAY down into the mud and muck and couldn't move.

She was petrified. So were we. We thought she had broken her legs. Mike knew the only way to get her out of there was to get her to calm down and move slowly. When she started trying to slowly get out she made some progress - but it took a lot of time! We were so relieved to see that she could walk and wasn't limping one bit. But she was sure dirty!

She was mud from her chin to her tail.

There was no question that she'd have to go swimming before the trip home! But she still had other plans. Today just wasn't Sparkie's most graceful day. She tried to dig on the water side of the dike but as she got digging she slipped and fell down the side.

Boogie however seemed to know just how to dig - notice the flying dirt.

Oh gosh, now we have three dirty dogs!

Boogie is pretty courageous. He just goes everywhere. Here he is practicing his dogwalk on a log that is probably 15 up from the empty slough. It didn't phase him a bit.

Slugger was up ahead on our walk back down the dike and scared up a heron. I told the heron to fly toward me but he didn't comply.

By now the dogs were getting tuckered....or at least we were hoping so! But we needed to get them clean before driving home so we made another stop at the pond.

Mike threw the ball just a few inches for Boogie. He tried to get it but swimming and trying to open his mouth far enough to get the ball proved to be too much so he gave up on the ball and swam to shore.

Mike really wanted to get the dogs to dive into the water so they'd get clean from head to tail. But they weren't too keen on the idea. Poor little Slugger leaned and leaned and whimpered and cried. Even though he really wanted the toy he just wasn't brave enough to dive in.