A wet Sunday.

When I drive up to the country on weekends so Whiskey can play in the surf, I swing off of 95 around Co-op City and switch to the Hutchinson River Parkway for about two miles. This saves me about five minutes of gnarly Bronx congestion. It also allows me, as we pass over a small drawbridge over a marsh, to see if the tide is high or low.

The tide makes all the difference as to where we romp with Whiskey.

When it's high, as it was on Saturday morning, we head to Edith Read nature preserve. When it's low and Edith Read is a long beach of rough littoral stones, we head to dog beach in Larchmont, which during low tide is a quarter mile in length and fairly ambient.

On Sunday we headed to the latter sea-shore and Whiskey fetched a duck decoy with an articulated head that I had bought from a hunting supply store. This decoy seems to arouse the instincts in her and she's off like a shot to haul in the faux canard.

As the tide comes in in Larchmont, the one beach becomes two beaches, separated by an ever-widening swath of the sea. Around nine-o'clock on Sunday morning, Doberman-Pinschers began showing up at the beach. The Doberman-Pinscher Club of New York City was having an outing at the beach. They were expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 dogs.

Whiskey paid them no nevermind and continued to hunt the throwable duck. She was exhausted--swimming the the cold water two days in a row can exhaust anyone, but she was gamely after her game.

As more Dobermen and Doberwomen arrived, I decided it was time to head home.

Unfortunately, the path between the seas had closed and my wife and I were stranded on the wrong side, the south side of the two split beaches. Us and a dozen Dobies and their owners.

Whiskey (and my wife) gave me a look like Oliver Hardy used to give Stan Laurel. They seemed to say with their limpid orbs, "this is another fine mess you've gotten me into."

However, though our sneakers got soaked, we made it, finally, to dry land. Whiskey dried off in Manor Park and was none the worse for wear. My wife at least removed the sand from her feet, as did I, driving illegally barefoot, hoping my running shoes would dry. They did not.

In the end, all was well.

Dogs get wet, as do sneakers.

Everything dries.

And life goes on.