Of dogs and swans

This morning we joined the Huon Valley Dog Walkers for their second social outing along the Franklin foreshore, taking Baerli and Gretchen with us of course. It's great for the dogs to be able to socialise with other dogs... oh and the people are pretty nice too. It was good to meet Nat of the twigs and her gorgeous whippet and catch up with Zuki. The editor of the local paper took photos for next week's issue. Luckily we kept B on the lead, as she loves a swim and there was a family of swans with four beautiful cygnets floating past.

A major goal of the group is to lobby local councils to install more off-leash dog areas, ideally fenced or at least away from major roads. I've mentioned before that one of the few things we really miss about Sydney is the afternoon walks up to our local off-leash doggie park, where loads of dogs and their owners met at around 5pm every day. We love going to Kingston Beach which is safe, beautiful and guaranteed to have loads of dogs for ours to socialise with... but it is a 30 minute drive away so only possible on weekends with nice weather. Most days we'd be lucky to run into one other dog along Franklin Esplanade, but today was most definitely an exception. Looking forward to going to more of these gatherings and to more dog-friendly places to go close to home.