Camber Sands

After we had done Christmas with the family who were going elsewhere for the 25^th, and then Christmas on the 25^th, and then tea with the extended family on the 26^th, I was ready for a break. We booked a small house with a garden for three nights, and drove down to Camber.

The house was perfect for dogs, with hard floors throughout, and a kitchen big enough for her crate, a gate into the back garden which was fully fenced and accessed from the kitchen. We dumped our bags, set up Meg’s crate, and then took her to the beach.

Camber Sands is a marvellous beach. It is divided from the Rye beach by a deep wide river that the fishing boats use, and from there, you can walk for miles, all the way to Dungeness. When the tide goes out, there are acres of flat hard sand—popular with dogs and families and horses. Towards Dungeness there are wind-surfers and athletic people (mostly men) riding dangerous wind-powered vehicles and flying into the air attached to giant sails and all sorts of crafts on the water. But down nearer to Rye, it’s safe to walk, and we love it.

To reach the beach, we needed to walk along a road for a few hundred yards, and it was such hard work with Meg. Beaches are often devoid of sticks, and Meg is easiest to control if I am carrying a stick—so I took a supply. Whether it was because I was carrying sticks, or whether it was residue excitement/bad behaviour following the Christmas upheaval, I don’t know, but Meg was terrible! It is the worst she has been near a road for months, and very disappointing. The road is a fast one, and every car that sped past us, Meg barked and tried to chase. I tried to calm her, to stop and make her focus on me, or the sticks, or a food treat—nothing worked. Meg had clicked into ‘wild dog’ and she pulled like a husky and was much too strong for me.

We managed to get to the sand dunes, and I suggested Meg might improve if let free. As soon as she was off the lead, she changed. Now her full focus was the sticks, and as long as I threw one occasionally, she stayed close and watched me closely. I don’t know if this would work when there are cars, but I don’t trust her enough to have her free near a road and I’m not strong enough to tie a lead to my waist. We might both end up under a car.

While Meg was free, she was great. The beach was as brilliant as ever, cold and windy and wild, full of happy dogs and windswept owners. We walked for a while, enjoying the openness of the place, the expanse of sea and sky and air. Meg walked with us, running off to chase seagulls, returning when I called, ignoring all the other dogs. At one point some horses arrived to gallop along the hard sand, and I knew that as long as I kept Meg’s focus on the sticks, she would ignore them. For a while we walked with the wonderful sound of horses hooves pounding the sand next to us, while Meg collected sticks and sniffed seaweed and tested the water for saltiness. This is happiness. There is something about a dog running across a beach that is infectiously joyful.

The rest of the stay was lovely, we did very little, and Meg was mostly contented to sit with a chew while we read or watched telly, and in return we gave her a long windy walk along the beach every day. She continued to be terrible near the road. I even tried to take her for a ‘training walk’ one morning—not planning to go anywhere but just to practice walking properly on the lead, like I did when she was younger. Every time she pulled, I stopped. When she looked at me, and came to my side, we continued walking. After 10 minutes we still hadn’t left the driveway! When I saw a car approaching, I quickly turned her, made her sit, tried to make her focus on me/a treat. Meg sat, heard the car, spun around, lurched towards the car, leapt at it when it passed, tried to pull me after it to chase it down the road. Not a success in terms of training. I gave up at that point and went back inside. For the rest of our stay, Husband had to hold the lead when we walked to the beach and we tried to get over the road as fast as possible. Like I said, Meg was great when on the beach, even if she’s a devil near a road.

The house survived, and there was a vacuum cleaner to clear up the bucket loads of sand that Meg carries in her coat. The sprinkling of sand in every room she went into was constant, even hours after returning from the beach, when completely dry and having been brushed in the garden—always there was sand in her coat. The garden was a big help, though a previous dog had chewed a chunk of the wooden decking (I am assuming it was a dog) and Meg noticed it on the second day. Although she never chewed it, I could see her thinking about it, so we could never leave her unattended in the garden after that, which was a shame. She also developed bit of a tummy upset—I’m guessing down to eating sand and trying to drink salty water. She was very good about telling me when she needed to go outside, so there were never any accidents, but it made clearing up after her in the garden a ghastly job. Taking Meg on holiday is only relaxing up to a point. (But in this case, the pleasure of watching her run on the beach was worth the pain.)

I hope you have some joy this week, and in the year to come. Thanks for reading.
Take care.
Love, Anne x