Sea Wall

Tommy’s road sniffing has become so extreme recently, that we missed our train on Sunday. Normally, the walk to the train station would take 15 minutes tops, but it took us over 20! There are only so many times I can say ‘come on Tommy’ in a happy voice before I hate the sound of it. Maybe it’s the smells of the Saturday night take away, or just the heat on the pavement enhancing the smells that attracts him so much. Either way, pavement walking at the moment is taking a lot longer than normal. This is why, when we got to the station, we had to wait 20 minutes for our train. Not my fault boyo! Tommy was excited to be on the platform, but that soon passed, and he laid down looking just a little bored. Our train turned up on time so off to Benfleet we went.

The plan was to catch the train and then walk back as far as we wanted and then jump on a train home. I wasn’t sure what way to walk back, so on the way out I was looking left towards the sea wall and right towards Salvation Army land. There was lots of cows on the Salvation Army land so even though it’s a prettier walk, I decided on the sea wall. I didn’t fancy any upsets…

It was the right decision to walk the wall. There was a light breeze and Tommy enjoyed the smells coming from the cows. The grass is quite long so obviously some ‘bounding’ had to be done. The difference in Tommy’s body language is so visible when we walk somewhere away from town, even the town parks. Instead of scrabbling for smells and unfinished take away, with almost constant full alert for other dogs and (how dare they!) cats, he seems to relax a bit. Take in the smells and his eyes definitely do shine brighter. As we got further into the walk he seemed to relax more. His floppy ear got more floppy and his shoulders didn’t seem so stiff. His tail is a lot happier…

The only people we seemed to meet were bikers. When I saw them coming, I would call Tommy to one side, ask him to sit and I was holding him on a wait with one finger and hardly any eye contact! I’m not sure if it was just because he was tired and decided to behave or if he actually wanted to, either way, he was perfect every time. I was happily surprised.

We stopped at the driving range near Two Tree Island for tea and cake (well, I had tea and cake). The café area was empty so I tied Tommy to a table leg whilst I went in to get my treat. Typically, someone came into the café and went up to Tommy to say hello. Tommy wasn’t happy and told him off. Luckily the gentlemen used to own a Jack and said ‘I should have known better, my one would do exactly the same, even if I was with him!’.

Tommy and I carried on walking along the sea wall, past the abandoned barge, where Tommy had another dash around the mud before we headed to the train station. I had hoped to continue through Old Town onto Chalkwell, but time was against us. We only had a couple of minutes wait for our train and then off home we went.

The local pavements still proved a perfect (yet annoying) sniffing ground for Tommy. He was especially bad as he was hungry as well. I wish I could train him out of it, but I suppose there is only so much I can expect from him in one day!