In honor of our dear old girl, I’m re-publishing this joyous post from a decade ago:
Science has measured and discussed the positive and negative effects of ions for years. I’ve heard that the ocean shore carries a different ionic charge, which can be energizing for many critters, and as proof I give you our Edie girl:
On the morning of our third day at Tomales Bay, we headed out to exercise the dogs. It was still a little cool as we drove out to one of Point Reyes’ beaches. When we got there, we had the beach to ourselves; I’m always impressed with how high the waves are. It seems to me as if the water is higher out where the waves form than it is along the waterline itself.
Edie was just nuts from the get-go. There’s something about the beach that fires that little girl up beyond belief.
She ran loop-de-loops, tongue lolling out, and took off for the hinterlands then came charging back
Ernie tried to give chase upon occasion, but since his injuries when Edie rolled him a few years ago, he’s no longer a sprinter.
Boy chases girl — sounds familiar, huh?
If girl escaped boy this often, we wouldn’t have a population crisis.
We ran and chased her some, but the difference was Edie had channeled the Energizer bunny. She just kept going and going.
When she ran down into the water, Mrs. O said, “she’s not getting back into the truck.”
And she was quite a (happy) mess.
At times she outran the camera lens.
And still she kept going.
I took 35 pictures down on that beach, and this is just a sample of them. I’ve put them in chronological order, except that the first Berserker image up there was actually one of the very last I shot; here’s the larger image of Edie girl toward the end of our walk (and her run).
As we left, we put her in the back of the truck, to keep the wet sand out of the backseat. Softie that I am, however, I opened the back window so she could see us. Oops! She shouldered the window open and tried to squeeze into the cab, bringing a lot of wet sand with her. I forced her back into the bed of the truck, half-closed the window, and on our ride back I think she came to like being back there, as she got better sniffs.
As far as the ionic effect, the web sites say positive ions cause the ill winds, scirrocos, mistrals, the Santa Anas and bitter winds. But down at the beach it’s negative ions that have such a positive effect. After seeing how happy our Edie is when she hits the beach, you don’t have to convince me.
OmbudsBen 
This post made me smile, and reminded me of the time back in 1987 that I took my 15 1/2 year old black lab, Samantha, to Ocean Beach. She LOVED it, and ran around like a puppy. She kept trying to take off and follow people jogging along the shoreline. I wish I could find the picture I have of that day, your post sent me searching for it, but alas, I cannot. Beaches are beautiful places, and your Edie sure looked like she was having an amazing time that day. And yeah, they sure get dirty!
Thanks, J. We just got back from a trip for a friends’ daughter’s wedding, and to visit my aging folks. I couldn’t log into the blog then to reply as myself, but it was good to hear from you.
Glad to hear Samantha loved the beach, too! I’m glad we got Edie to the beach when we did; curiously, our Nora seems indifferent. She enjoys the walk, but the negative ions don’t seem to affect her as much.
Do you take Mulder to the ocean?
We have taken him once, but generally we do not. He loved it, but mostly as he loves anywhere, I’m not sure he loved it like Edie and Samantha did. I will have to try again. I feel like anywhere we want to take him is a big event with traffic and so on, and then there are the limitations involved with having him with us if we want to eat or something. And then there’s the dirt and sand. So we are not as motivated as we should be with getting him there. You can see a picture of him at the beach here. It was half moon bay or thereabouts, and perhaps part of the problem is I don’t trust him to come off of the leash, I’ve read too much about dogs being swept out to sea, and he doesn’t always listen, so I worry about something happening… http://jellyjules.com/?p=5872
We took Mulder to the Marin Headlands the other day, and he loved it. He did not go berserk, though perhaps that is because he was on the leash the entire time. But it was really nice.
In a separate note, last year when we went to France, you told me in a comment about an author you met, Mark Greenside, and his book(s) about living there part time. I recently bought his book, “I’ll Never be French (no matter what I do), and I thoroughly enjoyed it, thank you. Really, it just makes me homesick for that lovely part of the world, and wonder if moving there might be so impossible (even considering my F in second year French in college…)