Of Riptides and Riptones

April 9, 2012

Sullivan's Island, SC

On day 3 of our spring trip, we headed to Charleston, SC. Our first stop was Sullivan's Island where we walked around Fort Moultrie (dogs are not allowed inside the fort, but permitted on the outside grounds). Behind the Fort is a tiny little beach and a rocky shoreline and I thought this would make a nice backdrop for a few photos of Tessa. Lo and behold, we had been beaten to it. We came upon somebody else's photo shoot - 4 guys that looked like musicians. I inquired and learned that indeed, this was a band from Nashville - The Riptones. They loved Tessa and we had a brief talk - these guys were so nice! 

As we continued our walk, we met a guy with a Jack Russell Terrier, who was off-leash, and were told that dogs were allowed off-leash around the Fort, as it is public land. I thought that was really odd - I was pretty sure that dogs were supposed to be on a leash and not to roam around freely (at this point I want to re-iterate that in such places, Tessa is only off the leash when posing for photos). And next thing I knew that little Jack Russell attacked my dog! He tore into her ear and shoulder but luckily didn't do any damage. Poor Tessa always seems shocked that any dog can treat her like this - she is so non-confrontational. She started defending herself a little bit, but it was more like shoving the Jack Russell as if to say, "hey, that's not nice", The guy said Tessa was attacked because she was on the leash - "that's what usually happens". Uh-huh.