What are your views on taking pup to The shore ( well, he is a 6 month pup , not a young young one) ?
We have lots of shores on the Wirral Peninsula but my main concerns are ;
A) drinking the water
b)will the salt water affect his coat with regard to condition?
c) I dont want him nibbling any "yucky" stuff that may have found its way onshore

Am I being overprotective and spoiling his fun or I am right to be concerned ?
Not all beaches in Britain are renowned for cleanliness :( although they do look ok where we are
Lel

Hi lel my staffords love to run on the beach and swim in the sea. ive never had a problem with coat condition after theyve been in salt water and i find when theyve tasted it they dont drink is as its so salty

Thanks Gwen
as we are hoping to show I didnt want the water to make his coat look dull but at the same time I dont want to deprive him of any fun :)
Le

If he drinks the water - just don't get back in the car straight away :) Go for a walk somewhere private and give nature a chance to do it's dirty work :D

Daisy

Our "Piglet" finds large expanses of water disturbing, and has to drink them......not pleasant on the return journey in the car :(

Our older dog earnt the nickname 'The Muck-Spreader' after his first visit to the beach (or as my husband put it - 'the s**t hit the fan' !) :D Fortunately, we were in a far flung corner of the cliff car park at the time, as use of poo-bags was impossible :(

Daisy

Hi we took ours to the beach at about 5-6 months but didn't let him in the water to swim and gave him a good brushing when we got home , but yes keep an eye out for the grobbly bits they pick up -Murph had half a starfish in his gob
enjoy it !! its the perfect place to teach ''dig'' and then when you get home it's -''no dig '' :D
liz

Hi, first time i had Buddy at the beach he drank loads of sea water (could'nt stop him) then nature took hold. Water pumped out of him from both ends which concerned me greatly as he began to look unwell and shaky on his legs.
Luckily for us there are streams of fresh water that exits the cliffs onto the beach which he headed straight for and drank himself better. There were no lasting ill effects and he was ok for the rest of the day. It worrid me though so i won't take him on the beach now without a bottle of fresh water.
Budmag.

We have taken our dog Jess (a border collie) to Wales with us since she was a pup. She has always been fine, she doesnt drink the water. One thing we always have to do though is rinse her down after being in the sea, as the salt water doesnt dry and I think it would annoy her abit if we didnt wash her down afterwards!

Hi all
we took Gus to the beach before and he had a really good runabout . He only had a sniff of the water and didnt try to drink any ot to eat any unsavourable *objects*.
I have been wanting to take him for a while now - especialy with this nice weather- so thanks for the advice everyone !! :)
Lel

I can't keep Chelsea from drinking the water - within about 10 minutes she has the worst case of the 'sqiurts' you have ever seen. Luckily she does it on the rocks so we don't have to try to clean it up LOL. We give her about 15 minutes after the walk to be sure she is safe before putting her in the car.

She's not bad about picking things up off the beach, but dead fish is a favourite to roll in.

As for Savannah - she stays about 20 feet up from the tide line in case the ACID (I mean water) touches her.

Wendy

Deep chested dogs of breeds which are prone to gastric torsion can get torsion from sea water or swallowing seashore stuff wet with it.

I live by the sea but my border collie will not go anywhere near the sea, let alone drink it! She loves streams so its not the water factor, i think its because of the waves. My friend's border collie will paddle but is not too keen. Very odd, mind you from reading thiese threads i'm glad she doesn't.