A terrible tragedy has befallen Beanie and Biggles. Actually, since they haven’t run out of dog food, rawhide chews or dried fish pieces I suppose you could argue that it isn’t that terrible a tragedy, but it certainly is cramping their style. You see their favorite beach is out of bounds due to high levels of toxic algae in shellfish on the Ayrshire coast. The local councils haven’t made a big deal out of it; there are little paper notices up at the beaches warning against eating shellfish, but you have to look for them, and I’ve seen many dog walkers out on the sand as normal – either through ignorance or choice – apparently without any dire consequences. None of them have Beagles however.

Even if I kept our two out of the water and on lead while running at (for me) a decent pace, both of them would still manage to grab shells and assorted washed up sea food. Any time Biggles drops behind for a second, you can pretty much guarantee that he’s just picked something up, or is having a pee, or both. More often than not when I look round I see little crab legs dangling from his mouth, or a razor shell getting crunched in half in his jaws. As for Beanie, well she’s become so fast at snatching and swallowing things that if I don’t spot a hazard while it’s still two yards away, it’s going down the hatch.

I did my best to explain to them what algae is, but I don’t think they really understood, as evidenced by their joint suggestion on how to defend themselves against it.

While blankies work well for fireworks and thunderstorms, they’re totally ineffective against marine toxins

So I’ve used one of those cloud-based page-watch services to alert me when the local restriction on shellfish is lifted, and we’ve just finished our first completely beach-free week since the dreaded palm-oil problem last year. In the meantime we’re making up for the loss with extra trips to the poo-filled dog enclosure at Troon (best avoided when I’m due to brush their teeth later in the day), runs on the grass at the beach-park, and play sessions on our rear lawn.

So it could be much worse. But lets just hope that sea food is back on the menu soon, or we could be facing protests from the furry party.

So far we’ve had icy cold, bogs, naughty room training and a tick, but no fire; that came our visit to Castle Stalker in Appin, the final adventure of our Highland trip. This short and flat walk starts out in a layby, and takes you across a long, low and very narrow wooden bridge. During particularly high tides even the bridge can be submerged beneath the surface of Loch Laich, but on this occasion it was thoroughly dry. It was however still a challenge to get to the other side, because the planks going across it are widely spaced, and Biggles does not like that one little bit.

He seemed OK for the first few yards, but then he dug his front paws in and froze. Rather than simply picking him up and carrying him, Susan just gently coaxed him along. It took a while. A long, long while.

But eventually he made it, and immediately returned to his normal cocky self as we walked along the shore by the castle. Other dog walkers and photographers all received a stern woofing! I love the way my boy can instantly put bad experiences behind him; it’s a good way to be.

The area around the castle is renowned for spectacular sunsets, but this evening was colorless and grey. I took a few long exposure shots, the sunset came and went behind the clouds, and I was all ready to pack up when some of the clouds started to pink up. I kept taking shots and a few minutes later it looked like the sky behind the castle was on fire.

From grey…

To spectacularly colorful, and all this well after the official sunset time. Click the above pano to see a larger image.

The colorful show continued long after sunset, with the sky turning a deep red as we retraced our steps to the wooden bridge. Biggles trotted onto it quite happily, and this time made it to the half-way point before a steady supply of biscuits was needed to coax him to the other side. The last night of our holiday we all slept soundly in our caravan, and in the morning we packed up and drove home. But not before Beanie had one last stint in the naughty room.

Part 1: http://www.fourleggedpal.com/2015/04/23/a-tale-of-ice-and-fire-and-bogs-part1/
Part 2: http://www.fourleggedpal.com/2015/04/24/a-tale-of-ice-and-fire-and-bogs-part2/
Part 3: http://www.fourleggedpal.com/2015/04/25/a-tale-of-ice-and-fire-and-bogs-part3/
Part 4: http://www.fourleggedpal.com/2015/04/26/a-tale-of-ice-and-fire-and-bogs-part4/