A Hot Summer Day at the Doggie Beach

It is somewhat amazing to me that we had yet to take our dogs to the official, off-the-leash, doggie beach here in Chicago. They love going to the North Ave Beach but that one is packed during the hot summer days so they don't get to go often. Our previous experiences with doggie parks is that they are most often dirty and full of snarky dogs. So we generally just avoid them. This past Labor Day weekend we packed up the car and headed to the Indiana Dunes as when we went there last summer they were low-key and pretty empty of tourists... but apparently Labor Day is when they get all their traffic as every parking lot for each one of the dunes was packed with a long line to even wait for a spot. Completely a bummer and after wasting a few hours driving... we thought what is one more and headed to the Montrose Harbor Dog Beach in Chicago. I think the dogs were ready to riot when we finally got there. It was a hot day and they were tired of the car...

As we walked over there we were both silently praying for it not to be a dump... and so maybe it was the low expectations but it was completely great! The dogs had an absolute blast. Eddie got to barrel through Lake Michigan after his beloved tennis ball and Shelby got to prance around the beach without being tethered to me... they loved it.

Well, they loved it for a while... Shelby was not really keen on going into the water and the third time that we picked her up and put her in the lake she was pissed. She hightailed it to the gate with her "I am not taking this crap" face. So it was time to head back to our exiled home in the burbs. All of us thinking why the heck hadn't we checked out the dog beach all those years while we lived downtown. It was a great summer day and we will definitely be making another trip there.

{Click on any of the above images to head over to our flickr account where there are a few more doggie beach photos.}