My parents dogs accompanied us on our beach vacation. We all love having the dogs around, but it was especially helpful for the golden retriever, Luke, who suffers from a high amount of anxiety, to be with his family. Though Luke constantly needs to be reassured and is hesitant about most things, he surprisingly enjoys playing in water... as long as his feet touch the ground.
If you have been reading my previous HHI blogs, you will have seen the dock and beautiful water views at the vacation house. We collectively spent many nights and hours during the day enjoying the scenery from the dock. The dogs would tag along. While my parents' Basset Hound mix, Bailey, was content to sit at our feet, Luke could often be found curiously eyeing the water with a slightly concerning look of longing. Nevertheless, we weren't too worried about Luke actually getting in the water, because, as I previously mentioned, he is a pretty fearful dog and at 99% of the day can be found, if not at my mother's feet, following closely behind.
Well, I'm sure you can tell where this is going...
Yep. Nothing is quite as funny as a highly strung-out dog stuck, literally stuck, in the mud. I couldn't stop laughing during the whole ordeal. It all started with someone noticing that my mom's 5th golden-haired limb was oddly missing. After a good bit of whistling and calling, alarm started setting in when no happy-faced golden showed up. Unfortunately, I was absent from the actual discovery part of finding Luke in the water. I showed up, along with my Sister and my camera, for the rescue end of things. Thank God for husbands who have "man strength".
Miguel, with some help from my mom, was eventually able to wrangle and lift the 70 lb Luke to the lower dock. Despite his breeding, Luke is not the best swimmer, however, to his credit that puppy can run pretty quickly if he wants to! As soon as his muddy paws hit the dock Luke shot up the ramp faster than I've seen him move in years! Once back to "safety" on the higher part of the dock, Luke began the difficult job of attempting to remove the sticky marsh floor from his fur.
This was a strenuous job. We chuckled some more after seeing the trails of dog prints all throughout the low-tide marsh. He had been very busy! Poor thing!
To add a little bit more comedy to the situation, Luke then attempted to wipe off more mud using the edge of the pool. Perhaps he was inspired by the multiple nights of Olympic diving, or maybe he was just so flustered by his unintentional swim, either way Luke flipped into the pool.
Hahaha! Look at that face! Luke was just so spent. As my brother-in-law, Jared, put it, Luke looks as though he is thinking, "This day sucks". With the new knowledge that Luke was, in fact, able to actually swim, we tried coaxing him into the pool to play. However, after being rescued from the water for the second time within minutes, he wasn't having any of it.
