March 9. Day 68. My adopted family

We didn't have dogs when we were growing up. We weren't allowed. We lived on a busy road with no fence so my parents, quite sensibly, had a no dog policy. Well sort of. We never actually bought a dog. But most of the time we had one anyway. There was the dog the parish priest gave us. It had been a gift from a grateful couple he'd married but he couldn't keep it. Even my parents would never say no to the priest. And on top of that there was an assortment of dogs that followed us home and never actually left. Like I said, there was no fence. They could have left at any time but they didn't. They knew when they were on to a good thing. My niece Cleo isn't allowed a dog either because they have no fence so I let her share mine. This is only fair because at the moment I'm sharing custody of my brother's dog, And I never had a daughter so I get to borrow one of my sister's from time to time. So it was today. I wanted to check out the Colmslie Recreation Reserve and
 Cleo needed no encouragement to come along as my apprentice dog handler. The beach would have been dog heaven if it wasn't for the lack of separation between the sand and the boat ramp. It scared me too much to let the fur friends off the lead for too long. But there were plenty of other places to run and jump and generally let your hair down. It was rather a nice way for the extended, adopted, blended family to spend a Sunday.