Basset Blogs: 2014

Friday, March 21, 2014

Letter: Canine cooperation at Good Harbor Beach

March 19, 2014 Letter:

Canine cooperation at Good Harbor Beach Gloucester Daily Times

To the editor:

Perhaps it was because, for the first day in a very long time, the season felt like New England (and not Newfoundland) last Saturday, as hundreds gathered with their canine companions for a mass celebration of sea, sun and sky at Gloucester’s glorious Good Harbor Beach. I have brought my basset hounds here for many years and I cannot recall a happier, more amiable occasion as people and dogs of every imaginable shape, size, breed, age and disposition ran, walked, waved, strolled and jogged harmoniously along the sand, (and occasionally into the water) for a much-needed relief from an unreasonable and dispiriting winter that continues to stretch all of our patience.

Perhaps it is this sort of respite that reminds us of that which is truly beautiful and bountiful in our area, and sometimes how often we take for granted that which is rare, and sometimes fleeting – that which we need to preserve and take responsibility to sustain. Perhaps that is why, on this particular day, I saw not one dog mess left behind as owners patiently picked up after their finest friends.

Perhaps this is why fences have been erected at Good Harbor to protect the dwindling dunes.

But perhaps this Saturday was actually a souvenir how of how happily humans and animals and nature can, and should, coexist.

NATHANIEL S JOHNSON Rockport

GloucesterTimes.com, Gloucester, MA

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

A fleeting moment

This afternoon during our last evening walk up High Street, a man I had not seen in the neighborhood for awhile, crossed the street to greet Homer and Cletus, explaining how much he has enjoyed watching them playing in our yard, sunning in the car hatch, and greeting passersby. He then reached out, shook my hand and said "I shall miss them," walked back across the street, got into his car, waved, and and drove off.