It didn’t take long after arriving in Turkey for us to figure out that the beach would be our haven during the summer. Nothing makes a hot day more enjoyable than a trip to the beach with friends. It quickly became our reprieve, no matter how rough the work weeks were we always had the weekend and the beach to look forward to visiting. There was only one downside, a great beach day for us meant our poor puppies were stuck at home alone all day.
first trip to the beach
We tried taking Loki to our favorite beach with us once. We kept him on leash, and figured we’d be okay. There weren’t many people there as it was early in the season. But, the dogs hadn’t been in the water for ten minutes when the police came around and made us take them out. We ended up leaving the beach early because it was too hot for the dogs to be out in the sun with no access to the water.
While I was home in May, I ran into a woman who’s son-in-law lives in Turkey. He explained to me, through her, that the area we live in is conservative still and that many consider dogs unclean. Thus, they asked the police to have us get the dogs out of their water. His suggestion was for us to try more rivers or less public beaches.
beach trip, the second
This past weekend, we loaded the dogs into their kennels in the back of our friends truck and set off for a more secluded beach. He had scouted out some options earlier in the year and we figured it was the perfect time to give them a try. I wish I had a picture from the first beach we visited. He advertised it as a beach you could drive and camp on, citing water spigots as an example of how awesome it was. There were five or six older Turkish men that tried to stop us when we went to pull in to the entrance to the beach, but they ended up waving us through when they realized we didn’t speak enough Turkish to get past “how do you dos.†We understood their trying to turn us back when we caught sight of the previously pristine and bare beach, to see what looked like a refugee camp. Row, upon row, upon row of tents lined the beach. Not small tents either, these were massive structures. As it was the middle of the day in Ramazan there was no one about, but we decided that we should probably find a less populated area.
our friend’s dog sleeping on the beach
We struck gold with the second beach. There were three children in the water, with plenty of room to spread out and let the dogs off leash to enjoy the gorgeous day with us. We did learn our lesson about trying to take a blanket with us as the dogs made sure to scatter grit and sand all over it in the first thirty seconds on the beach. We sure were glad for the beach chairs this time.
loki retrieving
Sam wasn’t too sure about the water at first. Brian carried her out twice and as soon as he let her go she swam straight back to shore. But then a good friend spent fifteen minutes coaxing her into the water. By the time he was done, we could barely get her out. All the dogs figured out that if they looked pitiful enough, someone would hold them so that they didn’t have to swim. It was a resounding success and a trip I hope we repeat for the rest of this summer.
bozzie chowing down on some ice
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