When we got to the beach this morning, there was no one there. Well, there was one Bahamian couple, but they were just sitting in their truck parked in the shade. Pretty normal behavior here. So it at least felt like we had it completely to ourselves. We moved a little way down the beach away from the parking lot, then I kicked off my flip flops and headed for the water while Shawn let Laika off-leash. The water is finally warm enough to actually get in, so I waded in up to my knees. It was so calm and clear today that I immediately noticed a school of tiny fish swimming around my legs. I turned around to see Laika sitting at Shawn’s feet starting to get impatient for him to throw the tennis ball that he didn’t even know he had. I had snuck it into his pocket when we got out of the car. I’m not sure how she knew that – maybe she could smell it?

I explained to him where the ball was and he pulled it out of his pocket and launched it down the beach and a few yards into the water. She charged into the water with absolutely no fear. This is somewhat unusual as she normally hates getting into water any deeper than her chest. (With good reason – I’ve never seen a dog that’s a more clumsy swimmer than she is.) But today she was all about the water. She threw herself again and again into the water to rescue the ball. Then she started her own game of dropping the ball on the sand, kicking at it repeatedly until it was buried, then frantically digging it up. An odd game to us, but she never got tired of it.

After about a half an hour of these games, she had managed to nearly split the ball in two. I think the felt was the only thing holding it together. Shawn tossed it once again out into the water and she went after it. But it filled with water and sunk to the bottom before she could get it. So she stood there in the 2-foot-deep water, looking at the ball (the water was that clear) and repeatedly dunking her head under trying to grab it. Her depth perception must have been off, or she was scared, because she couldn’t get her head deep enough to grab it. She looked at me, so I waded over to help. By the time I got there, she was kicking the water in an attempt to force the ball up. I got soaked in the process, but reached in and grabbed it for her, laughing at her attempts.

I tossed the ball toward Shawn on the beach and behind him I spotted something shiny and pink. I knew it had to be a conch shell, but it’s rare to find one on the beach. I’ve been looking for one every time we’ve gone to the beach since we arrived here. Conch is like the national dish of The Bahamas – you can get cracked conch, conch fritters, conch chowder, scorched conch…you get the idea. And you see vendors selling shells that they’ve cleaned up on the side of the road. The one we found today is almost completely intact, which is pretty amazing.

We spent about 45 minutes playing and enjoying the beach. I think it was one of the best trips to the beach we’ve ever had. When we left the house this morning, we had a conversation about whether or not we would ever go back to this particular beach, as it was the one we always took Laika to and had a lot of memories there. At one point while we were playing, I looked at Shawn, who was looking out at the boats on the horizon. He quietly said that this was his very favorite place on the island. I said, “We’ll come back, then.”

At some point during the past year, we took a look at how well Laika is doing in Nassau, compared with how poorly she was doing during the short time we lived in Washington, DC. Why is she doing so well? For starters, she has a big yard that she can roam at her leisure. She does not have to be around any dogs other than the ones she wants to be around (ie. no traumatizing trips to the dog park). She doesn’t have to deal with any of the things that one might find in the city that she finds to be scary and frustrating — bicycles, small children, squirrels that she’s not allowed to chase, etc.

And we realized that the bottom line was that Laika is not a Foreign Service dog. This lifestyle cannot always give her a big yard and the opportunity to avoid scary things, particularly since most posting require that we live in the city. So either we had to leave the Foreign Service, or Laika had to leave us. I’m not kidding when I say that this is the hardest decision we have ever had to make. Those of you that have children will probably scoff at this, but she really is like our child. We have made so many decisions and sacrifices to work around her needs during the past four years.

But, the decision has been made, and Laika will be moving to Florida in April. We have found a Doberman rescue group that is willing to take her in, work with her, and find her a new home — hopefully with a huge yard where she can run around and be happy. I’ve been pretty emotional lately, and I’m sure I will be for several more weeks.

His first statement was that most of the guards are scared of all dogs, not just Laika. But he said that Laika’s extra scary because she’s so smart. Shawn asked what he meant by that. The guard explained that the typical approach they take when they come to a house where they know a dog might be in the yard is to shake the gate door. If there’s a dog out, this will bring him/her to the gate and the guards know it’s not safe to enter.

But, he told Shawn, they all know that Laika is so smart that when she hears the gate rattle, she runs and hides so that she can catch them off guard after they’ve entered the yard. So they still shake the gate, but they don’t really know if she’s going to come tearing out of the bushes after them once they get in the yard.

First, this made me laugh out loud. Yes, Laika is smart. But smart enough to entrap the guards? I don’t think so. When she does see them, she’s much more worried about keeping them out rather than letting them in just so she can attack them.

Secondly, I wonder how this story got started. For some reason, I’m imagining some sort of guard retreat with everyone sitting around the campfire telling scary stories, and Laika was the main character in one. Or some sort of hazing ritual where the “new guy” is forced to come into our yard after being told that there’s a good chance that a dog is hiding in the shadows.

Oh well, at least it gave me a laugh for the day!

In random life-in-Nassau news, I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but we have a security company that sends guards around throughout the day to check on all of the Embassy residences. While this is comforting, it can also cause some problems for us because Laika really doesn’t like strangers in the yard. And now our house is known by the guards as having a “scary dog.” I’ve seen guards turn and run at the sound of Laika’s bark. And they often enter the yard with their nightsticks drawn and ready for action. (All of this despite the fact that Laika is never out in the yard unsupervised, or not behind a fence that prevents her from actually getting to the guards.) One of the guards just came by and Laika was playing ball, which meant that she didn’t care that there was a stranger in the yard, just throw the stinkin’ ball already! So we could actually talk with the guard, who asked us what kind of dog Laika is. Apparently all this time, some of the guards have thought she was a greyhound, which quite a few people have mistaken her for. But my thinking is, if they’ve been that scared of her all this time thinking she was a greyhound, what are they going to think now that they know she’s a doberman?

And finally, look what came today!

My very own Kona Cotton color card! (Insert squeal of delight here.) I need to pick fabrics for my quilting guild challenge quilt and with my mom’s expert advice, decided that the only way I could pick the perfect set of blues (it’s a monochromatic challenge) was to have the actual swatches in front of me. A few of these colors are going to be making their way to my house pretty soon:

Keeping these two out of each other’s space is a full time job.

Here’s my most recently completed baby gift:

These pictures were taken before washing and drying. Unfortunately, when it came out of the dryer, the lovely (and very time-consuming) running stitch lines had shrunk more than the rest of the blanket, pulling it into a wonky mess. So those are no more. I think it looks okay without them – not quite as cute, but oh, well. Being machine wash/dry -able is more important than looks and those lines kind of seemed like baby fingers might get stuck in them anyway.

And when I’m not making gifts for other people, I’m working on ones for our “baby.” Here’s Laika enjoying her new homemade bed and granny square blanket:

I have only one thing to say: The end is near, my friends, very near.

In this case, she was trying her hardest to bury a rawhide bone in my potted plants on our back patio. The rawhide bone that Shawn had just given her to try and keep her quiet, ironically. So half of my green onions are no more. Looking at the bright side, the same guest that spied Laika’s little “project” brought his 9-year-old daughter with him and she successfully tired Laika out by racing her in the pool. (Laika hates the pool, so her idea of “racing” involves her doing laps of the pool on dry ground while whoever is in the pool swims laps. Laika always wins. But also gets very tired.) So we had a very calm and quiet evening while Laika slept.

This is her other recently discovered ability that gets her into much trouble. If you look closely, you’ll see that she has managed to figure out how to get two tennis balls into her mouth. And once that happens, it turns into a game of “keep away” which is really annoying when I just want her to get in the house because I need to do something other than chase an insanely fast dog around the yard for 20 minutes. Because she never, ever stops unless forced to do so. So I’ve been having to just walk away when the second ball makes its way into her jaws. And wait it out, which is what I’m doing at the moment. Right now, it’s looking like she may be out there for another hour until Shawn gets home to deal with her. Not that she minds – she’s just happy with the tennis balls.