Fort FUN-ston

Yesterday, I had a few errands to run in San Francisco, and Cabana came with me. Lately, I have been keeping one of Cabana's many beds in the back of the car. She likes riding back there with plenty of room to luxuriate. Here, Cabana is looking at me as if to say, "We've been in this car for an awfully long time. Where in the world are we going?" I snapped this photo of her by just aimlessly holding the camera up while driving.

Recently, some fellow dog owners told me about a "dog park heaven" in San Francisco. So of course, we had to check it out. I would say their description was accurate!

Fort Funston is a HUGE network of sand dune covered trails (over 35 acres) that overlook the Pacific Ocean. Almost all of Fort Funston is open to off-leash dogs, so it really is a dog's Disneyland! In this photo, the woman ahead of us is walking 6 dogs! It seemed like even more when I was following her, but the photo only shows 6. There were a lot of professional dog walkers there, with leashes all over them, walking multiple quantities of dogs at a time. They seem to know which ones need to stay leashed, which ones can wander at will, which ones need to be called often and coaxed to stay nearby.

On the other side of this ridge behind Cabana, is a cliff with a drop-off down to the ocean. Yikes! (There's a lot more of a ledge, though, than there appears to be in the photo--it's deceptive.) We didn't go too close to the edge, since there are signs warning about the possibility of humans and dogs falling off the side and landing on the beach below. This made me realize how far Cabana has come in being reliable off-leash. Even though Fort Funston is HUGE, she never wandered too far from me and came whenever I called. She sometimes had to finish sniffing something for a few seconds before she came to me, but I felt confident of her response, albeit slightly delayed.

It was a gorgeous day with no fog, a rarity in San Francisco. My only regret was that we only had about 30 minutes to enjoy it all! I had something else scheduled, and traffic made us get there later than anticipated. Next time, I'm going to block out a good 3-4 hours, so we can walk the whole way down to the beach.