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I was wondering since I saw many owners do that today in St Augustine, FL and Ponte Vedra, FL Beaches.
If you do take your dog, how did you introduce the concept? Did you leash him or her? Did you take it to a designated potty area? How about getting into the water? How about getting beach sand off?
Any other methods?
I am debating whether to do it myself but the car ride gets him sick.
If your dog has an adventurous spirit, I don't think you need to do any special introduction. Just take a walk on the beach and slowly work your way down to the water. Let him investigate, and walk him into the water a bit.
Some dogs will love it, some won't care for it, you'll just need to see. Even if he doesn't like the water, I'm sure he'll like walking along the beach .
As for the leash, you're required to keep the dog on-leash the entire time. I've taken my dogs in the water on-leash and it works fine - I'm standing right next to them the entire time. Nothing makes me madder than when I walk onto the beach and people have loose dogs. My dogs will fight if a strange dog comes up to them, so it's a big stressor for me .
You also want to be sure you have your dog's rabies tag, etc. on the dog. It's rare for the police to check, but if they do and you don't have the tags on the dog (or the leash), you'll be ticketed (it happened to my husband many years ago on Jax Beach).
For potty, I just carry a bag, the usual. There are garbage cans at the beach for disposal. For beach sand, I just keep a bunch of towels in the car and brush them off a bit before hopping in, we do the rest at home. There are showers where you can rinse him off though, look for them by the ramps.
Watch for hot asphalt in the parking lot - it can get super-hot on their feet.
And the collapsible water bowls are great, just fill it with some bottled ice water you bring from home.
I take my dogs to the Venice beach ones in a while. They just roam around, playing with ball, jump in the water, swim and having a good time. I had no special introduction.
My female was about 8 month old when i took her to St. Augustine's beach, she had no clue what to do and was afraid of incoming waves. I just minded my own business and let her to discover things for herself. I went swimming and she was whining and whimpering, finally she decided it's not good to be separated from me, jumped in the water and swam to me LOL.
She's swimming to this day in my pool or beach.
I usually take Elwood to the beach very early in the morning for a really relaxing walk (far fewer people.) I let his leash drag and he can actually run a bit.
But we will also take him in the afternoons, and keep him more strictly on leash for that.
If we are in a more secluded area he'll swim with us off leash. He doesn't go in very far. We make sure to bring fresh water for him, we have one of those collapsible bowls. We bring poop bags. Elwood usually wants to pee right at the beach entrance, where a million other dogs have already gone.
I don't clean Elwood up much until home. First we hose him off, then I stick him in the outdoor shower.
When she was just a baby puppy we had a lot of flooding in my town & she was having a grand time splashing in all of the swales that were holding water. One Saturday morning I took her to Brohard Park in Venice. Oh, what fun! Lots of other dogs to play with and would you just LOOK at all that water to play in!
We learned that Shadow is not brave about waves, but loves to swim. We also learned that Shadow has a long lasting battery. It would take her more than 4 hours of non-stop swimming & running with the other dogs before she would even sit down for the first time.
The nice thing about the dog beach in Venice is that there is a place to give your dog a bath. I don't live down there anymore and we go to the boat launch on the river to swim. No place for a bath there, so she waits until we get home.
This time of year we go M-F to swim in the afternoons and I just hose her off after, except for Friday. Friday she gets a real bath. We don't go near the boat ramp on the weekends.
I don't think dogs require an introduction to the beach as the ones that do not like water will avoid it and the ones that like it dive right in. I do have a friend with a dog that goes for beach walks everyday and she said he will not go in the water yet when Dash and I went on a beach with them he followed Dash right in and played in the water the whole time.
There is alot to sniff on a beach for the dogs that do not like water so. I think most dogs enjoy visiting the beach.
I have always just toweled mine off and then hose them down later. I do not know if the beaches in Florida get alot of bacteria in the water or not but the beaches here in California do especially in the winter after the rain washes things down from the mountains and when the bacteria counts are high or we have a red tide (algae). With either of those occurances I do not take the dogs to the beach.
Riveree, I hear you about the off leash dogs as Jazz hates off leash dogs running up to her. One of our beaches that allows dogs has an area to the left of the parking lot that is for leash free dogs and to the right dogs must be on a leash yet alot of people seem to think the on leash does not apply to their dog.It makes me mad as there is a specific area for leash free dogs!
If there are sea lions in the area be careful and if there is a dead one washed up on the beach do not let your dog go sniff it as they often have lung flukes. Now that the seal lion is dead they are looking for a new home and can crawl up your dogs nose and invade the lungs. While they do not kill the sea lions they are deadly to dogs.
I have a kiddy pool for mine...it is shark proof! I tried taking my Chyna over to Daytona Beach last year but they told me no dogs allowed. New Smyrna is closer so when the weather cools I will try taking her or some of the others over there. Otherwise they have never been.
I've taken one of my dogs to an off-leash beach and I think she sort of enjoyed it, although she isn't a water dog. She was fascinated by the water coming in and going out. I think she might have been trying to herd it
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.It makes me mad as there is a specific area for leash free dogs! 
I tried taking my Chyna over to Daytona Beach last year but they told me no dogs allowed. New Smyrna is closer so when the weather cools I will try taking her or some of the others over there. Otherwise they have never been.
