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A Dog Owner’s Guide to an Environmentally Friendly Beach Day

Environmentally Friendly Beach Day

Environmentally Friendly Beach | As a dog owner, there is nothing more fun and relaxing than spending a beach day with your dog when summer comes around. Not only is the beach a great place for your dog to run, jump, and play, but it also provides you with the opportunity to bond with your dog in the outdoors.

However, while the beach is a place for recreational summer fun and relaxation, as a dog owner, you must ensure that your dog does not harm or disturb the natural environment of the beach in any way. With our oceans and beaches already under serious threat due to human activities like pollution, you must enjoy beach day with your dog in an environmentally friendly manner.

This article will guide dog owners to have an environmentally friendly beach day with their dogs. We want you and your dog to enjoy the beach as much as possible but not at the expense of the environment and the people whose responsibility is to take care of the beach environment. Thankfully, there are a few effective steps you can take to ensure that your pet dog enjoys the beach in the most environmentally friendly way possible.

1) Adequate Training

As a dog owner, you must already know that before you can safely take your dog to a public place like the beach, they must be adequately trained to be around other people. Your dog must understand and respond to basic commands like sit, stay, come, etc.

If your dog cannot respond to these basic commands, it is probably best not to take it to the beach as you may risk having them disturb others by getting over-excited, or worse, aggressive. However, while teaching your dog these commands is necessary for them to control their instincts around other people, an untrained dog doesn’t just disturb people but also the environment.

Several studies have shown that dogs rank just after cats and rodents in their ability to disturb and drive away several smaller wildlife species in a given territory. In fact, one particular study showed that dogs scared away an average of 40% of birds when walking through a particular area, even when on a leash.

It is, therefore, necessary to train your dog adequately enough so that they know better than to disturb and chase away indigenous wildlife species when you take them to the beach. Moreover, your dog should be trained to avoid hunting smaller animals while at the beach, either by digging holes or chasing them around. If not, this could drive indigenous animals away from the beach habitat, leading to possible negative consequences for the surrounding ecosystem.

If you take your dog to a beach with turtle nests in the area, you must ensure that your dog stays away from them. Your dog might be tempted to dig up the turtle eggs, which could have disastrous consequences for the environment. All in all, make sure your dog listens to your commands so that if they are tempted to disrupt some wildlife, you can command them to ignore the temptation.

2) Pack Sustainably

A beach is a place where everyone, people and dogs, can come together to enjoy the great outdoors in a relaxing yet active and fun way. However, nobody wants to be at a beach that is littered with plastic. Pollution on our beaches not only makes them less aesthetically pleasing and compromises their status as national treasures, but it also has countless consequences for the marine environment and beach ecosystem.

To enjoy a beach day with your dog in the most environmentally friendly way possible, you mustn’t litter so that you can maintain the environment’s cleanliness. Even better, it would help if you packed sustainably so that you lead other beachgoers and dog owners by the best example.

If possible, try to pack reusable plates and utensils for yourself and reusable water and food bowls for your dog. You should avoid bringing plastic items to the beach at all costs, but if you bring some plastic with you, make sure you keep a trash bag handy. By packing sustainably and avoiding pollution at all costs, you set the best example for other beachgoers and dog owners to follow suit.

3) Avoid Fecal Pollution

As a dog owner, you are probably aware that you are legally required to clean up your dog’s feces in most public places. What you may not know, however, is that the 10 million tons of fecal matter produced by pet dogs in America every year contribute much of the pollution in waterways and marine ecologies. Moreover, the areas that are the most highly polluted by dog feces are usually dog beaches, which poses a serious threat to the environment and the ecologies found there.

Accumulation of fecal matter along coastlines and in waterways harms the environment and causes a rise in bacterial populations. The increase in bacteria can lead to several diseases and can be very harmful to all animal species, including humans. What’s more, many parasites can be transferred between humans and dogs due to contact with fecal matter.

These negative consequences can be avoided if more dog owners act responsibly and clean up after their dogs, especially in public places like the beach. Moreover, dog owners should avoid using plastic bags to pick up their dogs’ feces. Once these bags are contaminated with fecal matter, they can no longer be recycled. Therefore, make sure always to use biodegradable bags to pick up your dog’s feces.

Conclusion

Beaches are great places for you to spend some quality time with your pet dog. However, as beachgoers and dog owners, it is imperative to respect the environment around us and respect those whose job is to take care of that environment.

So, next time you go for a beach day with your dog, do the right thing and follow the above three steps to ensure that you are enjoying an environmentally friendly beach day with your dog.

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