Road Tripping Dogs - Dunsborough, WA

Last weekend we went on a 3 hour road trip with the dogs, down to Dunsborough WA for a wedding. We stayed in a dog friendly house so that we could leave the dogs there while we attended to the wedding formalities.

There was a problem with the house though - it was two stories, and both the sets of stairs were scary! Out the front of the house, they had what Honey the Great Dane calls 'skeleton stairs'. They are scary for doggies because they sort of 'disappear' when the dog looks at them.

If you look at them from this angle you can see what I mean. Barbie hates this type of stairs. She tends to lack confidence putting her back feet down. She did manage to get up and down these stairs many times but she really did not like it.

Inside there were shiny, steep stairs.

We drove to Dunsborough after work, and the traffic was shocking, so we were all tired and it was dark by the time we got there. I let Bender run up the front stairs, and N got into the house. I went back down to get Barbie.

While I was coaxing her up the stairs, and we were about half way up, I heard a monstrous crash. N started yelling at me to come and help her. I thought something really bad had happened but Barbie got spooked and refused to move.

I got her up the stairs in another minute or so with a lot of excited happy voices, and discovered Bender and N at half way point of the shiny stairs. Bender had just charged into a dark room and fell down them. He was OK, and he came up the stairs when I called him.

Unfortunately, no-one has ever accused Bender of being a fast learner. He fell down the steps a second time that night. After that he didn't go near them again.

When they needed to go for their toilet break, I had to leash them up and get them up and down the front stairs. I had to do this twice, once just before bed, and a second time at dawn.



The dogs did enjoy the little backyard though, which of course, was down stairs and around the back.

We decided after the first night that the dogs and I could live downstairs and save all the dramas. It was much more convenient.

The wedding was in the evening, so we had all of Saturday to take the dogs exploring. We found a really lovely dog beach with a sand bar, and Barbie and Bender loved it so much.



Bender spent at least an hour just fetching his ball, over and over and over and over and over and over.

Barbie and I went for a walk, and then I decided, after checking out the beach that it would be safe for her to go for a bit of a sprint. I had my GoPro, so I managed to capture her in action. There was a group of people up the beach, and I could hear them cheering her on, though as usual they assumed she is a boy dog.



As she ran towards them I heard them saying 'go, go, open it up big fella!'



She decided she needed a rest, so she dug up the sand a bit to make it nice and soft. After a while, we packed them up into the car and went to the next dog beach. We went for a wander along the second beach without Bender's ball. It is always a bit strange having him trot along side us without having his eyes fixed on a ball. We can only do this on deserted beaches, as if any other dogs have balls and he doesn't he will go and steal theirs.

After all the running they were very happy to settle down on their beds whilst we went out.



The wedding was on the beach, and it was lovely. We popped back to the house before we went to the reception just to make sure everyone was behaving. They were.

Sunday morning the dogs were keen to go out on another adventure. We were intending on coming back via Dwellingup to check out the Murray River at Baden Powell, as we had a great December storm and the river was up.

We went out for breakfast first though, and the dogs were very patient with us. We drove to the Gecko Cafe and Gallery in Quindalup which seemed like a lovely laid back place.





Bender did decide he wanted to greet everyone who came in though! They were all very nice to him. Breakfast was expensive but yummy.

When we drove to Dwellingup after breakfast with a stop for the doggies to stretch their legs at a road house.

Turns out the river was too high for the dogs to swim, and I got scared off taking it on in my kayak as well.



We drove home from there without much more than a little walk. There were a lot of horrible March flies around and they were trying to eat us all.

The dogs were so exhausted when we got home that Barbie went into this pose for at least 48 hours.