On the Boardwalk

On The Boardwalk.

Saturday, December 5th: bright and warm (50s) in Ocean City.  La Quinta is one of the few hotels who are truly pet-friendly and do not charge you for bringing your dog.  We are here at La Quinta in Ocean City, steps from the beach and the boardwalk.  

The weather is perfect, high 50s and sunny.  Yesterday afternoon Zuma and I walked the beach and part of the Boardwalk for two hours as the sun was setting.  This was Zuma's first time on a beach and she leaped in the air and pounced on the waves and snapped at them like a lunatic, it was hilarious!  Sheer joy.  The farm dog goes out on an adventure to meet the world.  I wonder what she is thinking.  I know what she is thinking, just unhook me off this damn leash and let me run free!

Today, Doug's back is much improved, thankfully.  The three of us walked the entire length of the Boardwalk and back (2 1/4 miles one way) and looked across the water to Assateague Island, a huge sandbar, home of the wild ponies.  We even saw Santa with his team of Hafflinger "reindeer" giving people rides in a wagon.  

On the way back we stopped at a boardwalk brewery and sipped a cold beer outside in the sun. 

Doug asked the bartender if it was okay to have the dog on the deck and the bartender replied, "Inside, outside, it doesn't matter" so we sipped our suds while Zuma basked in the sun beside us on the deck.  What a great way to spend a sunny Sunday in December!  

All day people stopped us to meet Zuma!  We must have spoken with about 100 people!  I guess there aren't many Great Danes around here.  The most common comment was :  "That's a BIG dog!" (Really?  I hadn't noticed); "That's not a dog, that's a HORSE!" and "Ya gotta saddle for that thing?".  Some of the funnier comments were:  "Damnnnnnnm that's one big-ass dawg" and, my personal favorite, "Is that a DOG?" (the woman was TOTALLY SERIOUS) and "Whoa!".  People are not afraid to spurt out what's on their minds.  NO. FILTER.  That's fine, it makes for a most interesting walk-the-dog experience.  "Will she bite me?"; "How much does she eat?"; "Where does she sleep?" (Doug's response:  "Wherever she wants"). 

We certainly hadn't expected her to attract so much attention.  We don't even think of her as big.  She's just our dog, the dog you don't have to bend over to pet.  Thankfully, she loves everybody and she gobbled up all the attention and had her photo taken several times, mostly with small children.  She really is a great ambassador for the breed.  Perhaps she needs her own Facebook page, haha.  

We watched this Police Officer ride on the beach, then he rode his horse on the Boardwalk.  Beautiful!

This evening we went to pick up Mexican food and a man came out of the restaurant; he said his friend had told him he'd seen her on the Boardwalk today and he had to come out to "meet her in person"!  We're so proud of Zuma for her incredible patience and because she is a humble celebrity.  If she wasn't humble, she would be truly conceited from being told repeatedly, "You are so beautiful".  Then there'd be no living with her!