Maya deserved some quality time

Dogs don’t usually complain do they. They let you know when they want to go out or if they’re hungry, and Maya will bring a gonk or something and plonk it in my lap if she’s bored, but with our time being occupied elsewhere, apart from a walk in the morning and one in the evening, it’s been a bit dull for her.
We decided after breakfast to give her some quality time and take her down to the beach. Hubby has been walking her without the haltie lately in the evenings and she has been doing very well. Maybe not such a good day today, but I can see progress so feeling quite optimistic.

Typically, there were quite a few people about with their dogs, but when we got to the prom it was deserted, so we intended to let her off. Then Hubby saw a woman coming up the steps off the beach and she had a little dog so we thought better of it.
I suggested we went down on the sand, though Hubby was worried about my back, but I’d thought to bring his spare walking stick and I’m glad I did.

The tide was in but we let her off and she ran like the wind towards the water. She so loves it and it’s wonderful to see her running free. She saw a crow and memories of Maggie came flooding back as crows, pigeons and seagulls were always fair game to her.

Maya was off like a shot after it, but if it had been a race between the two dogs, Maggie would have won hands down……….. but for a big dog, Maya is fast, and it’s all power.
She was more interested in sniffing the tufts of grass after that, then she caught sight of a collie by the water’s edge and we were forgotten. No calling or whistling had any effect as she ran off to make friends and play. Luckily the guy didn’t panic as I think we’ve met before. His dog is 6, and he has another collie of 2 which is a bit of a scatterbrain (yep, been there and going through that with Maya too) so he was quite happy for the two dogs to play. Maya then wanted the ball and the collie wasn’t sharing, so gave her a warning.
She backed off and didn’t engage, continuing to run in and out of the water going round the collie and her ball. We let her play for a little while longer, then clipped her and walked back towards the prom.
Photo May 22nd 2022.

With no-one in sight ahead or behind us, we let her off again and she was happy to run ahead and come back, responding to ‘This way’ and ‘Here’ as we’ve been training her to.
A guy went past us on his bike and gave her lots of room so we thanked him for being so considerate. Some people don’t bother and then blame the owners for their dog being out of control just for being off lead. We get a lot of here, especially in the summer.
The walk home was uneventful, but I was tiring, my back was really beginning to ache and I was glad I had the stick.

As we got to our drive, our neighbours over the road were just taking their shepherd for a walk. Hubby told Maya to sit and wait as their dog went nuts on the lead on the other side, pulling and bouncing as she tried to get the haltie off. She then started to bark and whine but Maya ignored her, waiting patiently to be let in through the gate so that she could go and pee in the back garden. We were very proud of her, and she was well rewarded when we got indoors.

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