Baxter and Zoe in the Dunes

This morning I was taking the dogs out on my own as M was away in Edinburgh, and I thought I would try and get some pictures of them hunting/playing in the dunes.

We've now got to the stage that we can let Baxter off in the dunes at Belhaven Beach and he will happily go charging off but return to us 20 to 30 minutes later when we meet up at a pool on the salt marshes. Sometimes we can see him running around but frequently we lose sight of him and he nearly always re-appears from an entirely different direction. His red coat helps but unless he breaks into open ground he is pretty hard to keep track of. Zoe does her own thing but generally stays in sight and will always come when she is called. Baxter has not yet learnt to respond vocal commands when he is out in the wild.

As Baxter has been getting on so well I thought I would give him a bit more freedom today and let him off in the dunes on the other side of the saltmarsh which are on the way home. Initially he stayed with me on the path but then quickly disappeared into the maram grass. Unfortunately he did not re-appear this time further along the walk. I climbed up a hill behind the toilet which gives you a good view all over the dunes and saltmarsh but could not see him. I retraced my steps to where I had let him off. No joy.

So I started to walk home. I passed a lady who said she had seen him so that was a bit more hopeful. Eventually when I got to the river I saw one of our neighbours waving to indicate that he had found him. He had made his way home. Fortunately we live in a quiet cul-de-sac close to the river so we do not have to worry unduly about traffic. He was very pleased to see me and I was equally relieved. The added anxiety had been that we had an engineer coming to fix our boiler later today and I had visions that I might still be in the dunes calling out for Baxter !