Angus Eats A Jellyfish

Saturday, I organized a walk to St. Cyrus beach with Tash and Laine. I had been wanting to take Angus to the beach all summer. One of his first outings when we got him last year was to Cruden Bay beach and I remember how much he seemed to love it.

Tash was dog sitting, Kady, Falene's black lab and Laine is always up for a walk/hike with one of her pups. (Read here why Sammy was the chosen one this trip) The walk/hike was meant to be an 'easy' 3 mile circuit that took you down the beach, up the cliff and back along the grassy dunes.

All was good until we got to end of the beach and there was no trail to take you up the cliff in sight. While I was reading the directions to figure out where to go, Angus found something to kill time and that something would be a jelly fish. I had seen several washed up on the beach and even 'caught' him licking one but told him 'no' and he stopped and I really didn't think much more about it. And I thought since they were not in the water (and no tentacles were visible), they were probably dead and harmless. Well, as I looked up from studying the directions I see Angus really getting after a jellyfish (paw holding the jelly down, jaw yanking jelly up) and by the time I get to him, the damage was done. He'd eaten a little bit and it had stung his tongue. He immediately got sick and wanted nothing to do with anyone. While I call Ryan to google "what happens when a dog eats a jellyfish", Laine and Tash were already on it. Both parties said to monitor him and all should be okay. He got sick a few more times but then seemed to be more or less normal (as normal as one would be after getting stung on the tongue by a jellyfish...ouch!) and we all carried on to find the trail that wasn't there.

Ewwww

Since we couldn't find the path that was supposed to lead us up the cliff, we back tracked to what would turn out to be the path that was supposed to bring us back down the cliff because the path that leads you up the cliff had been washed away (hence why it wasn't there). (run on sentence anyone? are you confused yet?) Anyway, confusing sentence short, we went up and down the cliff which was no easy task with 3 dogs (one who was trying to eat all the grass. yes, that would be Angus) but made for some amazing views.

Once we were back down to the beach we carried on with the correct instructions and it was pretty smooth sailing from here. With the detours, I think the walk ended up being between 4-5 miles so a pretty good Saturday afternoon stroll. And I didn't even mention how windy it was. Like blow off your hat, make your hair a rat's nest windy but it was sunny, warm and there were baby Highland coos waiting for us at the end so I didn't care.

And, thankfully, Angus is fine. He didn't keep his dinner down and was pretty lethargic the rest of the day (which probably had more to do with running like a lunatic along the beach) but was back to himself on Sunday with no signs of jellyfish trauma. We hope he learned his lesson but I'm not holding my breath; he is a lab after all and nothing is off limits in his mind.