As she stirred awake, I felt her tiny nub of a tail flipping against my leg at a hummingbird speed. She’d spent the night before pacing in half excitement, half anxiety as I packed an overnight bag. Tavi has always been a dog who demands to know what’s going on and this is especially true when a piece of luggage comes out. 

She’d whined as I packed my essentials – my contact case, toothbrush, underwear. Despite having a sitter she adores with two huge Golden Retrievers happy to be bossed around by her, she gets despondent when she thinks she’s being left behind for any amount of time. 

She jumped up onto the bed, focusing her eyes on my every move to see exactly what kind of clothes were being pulled from my closet. Any time she sees a nice dress come out, she slumps. Cocktail attire is almost always the dress code of a dog-free affair. A smart business blazer? Forget it. But a swimsuit, that could go either way. She raised her tiny brown eyebrows as a swimsuit, beach coverup and tank top made their way into my bag. By the time shorts, sunscreen, and a sweatsuit were packed, she was prancing in delight. 

“Okay, Tavi,” I asked her, “do you wanna go celebrate your birthday?”

Of the many words Tavi knows, “birthday” is one of my favorites. When I picked her up from her rescue center, a lanky Min Pin puppy with a limp favoring her right side, they told me her birthday to the day. They were somehow not able to tell me other details about her, like, “how did she manage to break her left front leg and fracture the other three?” For all I know, they made up her birthday, but we’ve squatted on the date so long that it’s become ours. 

She’d come from a shelter out in the desert to a rescue group where her legs were set in casts, the last of which came off the day we met. Tavi had been using her newfound mobility, according to the woman running the rescue, to get in the faces of the other dogs in recovery and let them know exactly what she thought of them. The rescue group woman had just about had it with Tavi’s troubled teen antics. I loved her unflappable spirit instantly.

Our first “birthday” was when she turned six months old. I figured if anyone had ever earned a half-birthday celebration, it was her. Being my tiny Scorpio queen, it made sense to celebrate her half birthday in the summer months with a smaller affair in the chillier late October season. 

She’d had ten years of knowing “birthday” and loved it enough to do her springy Min Pin dance on her hind legs when I told her that not only were we celebrating her birthday, but her best friend, “Chico” (another favorite word), was joining us for the “beach.” Overloaded with the promise of her all-time favorite words, she ran zoomies around the couch and took a flying leap into the passenger side of the car. 

She started whining in excitement as soon as we turned down the street to where her best friend, Chico, lives. Chico’s parents had agreed that he could join us. He loved the beach, loved an outing, and would be thrilled to go on a fully dog-focused mini vacation. 

Together, they are a study in opposites. A Chihuahua-Pug with a perennially agreeable face and large, kind eyes, Chico greets everyone he meets with a Pug smile and a slowly wagging tail. He would be the straight-A friend that parents want around to be “a good influence.” 

Tavi, on the other hand, has a chronically high-strung, mercurial temperament. She is the fun friend who knows how to get into every parent’s liquor cabinet and dares you to pierce your belly button. Chico never barked until they started hanging out and Tavi taught him the joys of smack-talking other dogs. She loves having a sidekick, he loves her wild child energy. They’ve been friends for eight years. 

Loaded up in the car, he sat sweetly, she bounced around. I tried to cover the seats to protect them from incoming sand and wet dog debris. We made our way to Rosie’s Dog Beach in Long Beach, California. Long Beach is one of the most dog-friendly beach communities in Southern California, flecked with dramatic Art Deco buildings and 20s style Spanish bungalows that make for beautiful long walks. 

I’d booked us a room at The Maya Hotel, a gorgeous mid-70’s beachside tower right along the shoreline of Queenshead Bay, just a short drive from the dog beach. I’d reserved a standard room, but Tavi won over the heart of the concierge with her dancing and excitable charm. When she asked what brought us to Long Beach, I said without hesitation, “it’s her tenth birthday!” The woman’s eyes lit up at the sight of two happy little dogs checking in for their birthday weekend. She bumped us up to an ocean view room where we could see the fire pits in the hotel’s private beach. 

Once we set our bags down, we made our first stop for iced coffee and puppucinos at Monty’s Dog Beach & Bar. Although off-leash is allowed (the only off-leash beach bar in California to date), I kept them on a leash splitter to keep them close by while I caffeinated. 

With the midday sun finally warm enough, we closed out and made our way to the four beachfront acres of Rosie’s Dog Beach. From there, I unclipped their leashes and let them loose. They frolicked through the sand, joyfully kicking it up as they dug through it and rubbed their snouts in it. 

I stood back, proud of myself. I watched the two of them, two healthy, happy, senior dogs living their best life. And who was responsible? That’s right. This hot dog-mom in the pink bikini. I was hashtag live-laugh-loving it.

And that’s when Chico disappeared. For one and a half of the longest minutes of my life. 

If that sounds dramatic, congratulations on never briefly losing a dog. One minute, he and Tavi were together. The next, he was gone. I scanned the beach – no Chico. In a panic, my eyes darted around the tide. Neither of them had ever been willing to even get close to the water, but still. 

My heart tried to escape through my throat. I imagined myself calling his parents, imagined the croaking horror of telling them that I had, in fact, lost him. As I ran the shore, calling his name, I self-flagellated myself about shattering their trust, about letting down this sweet little dude that I’d promised to look over. This specific horror-tragedy played itself out in my mind-movie to a standing ovation at Cannes.

I ran and ran the length of the beach. I leapt up to a lifeguard hut and scurried to the railing to get a better vantage point. “Ya lose someone?” the lifeguard asked with the kind of windswept cool of someone who has probably never lost a dog. He brought up his binoculars. “Who’re we looking for?”

“Chihuahua Pug,” I choked out, “Little blonde guy. Big eyes. White muzzle. Orange bowtie.”

“Oh yeah, I see the bowtie! He was running a circle like crazy. He’s right over there, watching that Min Pin roll in something.”

I never watched Baywatch, but now I understand why people kiss lifeguards. I ran over to Tavi and Chico, where sure enough, Tavi had found a strand of kelp and was working the kelp fly larvae, the seaweed, and dog pee into her back like a birthday spa day. Chico had run his excitable laps and come back panting to her side to see what she’d found. 

I hugged them close, flicking kelp flies off my face. I could see Tavi wearing out and I didn’t want Beach Chico to get a second wind. “Do you guys want brunch?” I asked. “Brunch” is another one of Tavi’s favorite words, on par only with “Walk” and “Beach.” 

We made our way back to the car. I shook as much sand off them as I could with towels and baby wipes before they jumped in the backseat and took matters into their own hands with full-body, vigorous shakes. Micro-grains of sand and dog hair splattered the car, negating any hope left for a resale value. 

After a few more fistfuls of baby wipes, we took a seat at a rooftop patio on Saint and Second in the gorgeous Belmont Shore district. The beach had taken it out of the dogs, leaving them uncharacteristically well-mannered. Or at least uncharacteristic for Tavi, who tended to approach every dog interaction with the take-down energy of a sorority girl ten mimosas deep, looking for a brawl. Part of Chico’s endless loyalty means always taking her side with a surprisingly deep growl. But when they’re worn out, they can fool anyone into thinking they’re just exceptionally well-behaved little ones. 

Exhausted from their shoreline sprinting, they lay down in the sun, leaning against my legs for pets. I sipped a cold Pinot Grigio, picked at a mezze plate, and stopped worrying about what the beach had done to my hair. Up close, I was covered in sand and dog hair. But from a distance, I could swear we looked glamorous, luxuriating in the warm summer breeze, watching the sun paint the sky into a vibrant pink. 

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by the Dog Bakery. It’s an adorably Los Angeles-based vision of a celebrity pet advocate, which is the kind of sentence that reminds you that Long Beach, while seemingly an entirely different city, is technically still part of LA. I got them each a small cake ball and we headed back to the hotel. 

After a quick shower and changing into a sweatsuit, we went to the Maya’s private beach fire pit area to catch the tail end of the sunset. Since no one else was there, I put my phone in a cup and we listened to Pet Sounds as the sky darkened behind our private fire pit. The dogs closed their eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sand in the cooling night air. 

The next morning, they woke up in the crisp white hotel sheets. They were still yawning, still fighting their tiredness. As Tavi lifted her head, I felt her nub flipping against my torso. I kissed her forehead and she looked at me in that very particular way she does to show gratitude. Her ears went back and she nuzzled my face with her tiny whiskers. On the other bed— the hotel had given us two queens – Chico yawned and stretched, perfectly rested from having an entire bed to himself. Sitting out in the small balcony of our room in Long Beach, I savored my hotel styrofoam cup of coffee and watched the birds seek out their breakfast over the calm inlet waters of Queenshead Bay before we checked out and headed back home. 

Outside the hotel, I clipped them into their 15-foot leashes and we walked the length of the shoreline Harry Bridges Memorial Park. The sun was still rising and outside a few joggers keeping to the pathway, we had the park to ourselves. They ran, rolled in the grass, did their business, and cautiously balanced on the rocks at the very edge of the shoreline. And once inside the car with the soothing hum of the freeway, they passed out, snoring the entire drive back home. 

This is it, I thought. When I think of moments of being a great dog mom, this will be one of them. 

Tavi turns 13 this year. I’m scouring the internet for a good deal on hotels in San Diego, maybe Ventura County. People are always surprised to hear her age – her feisty little dog energy has not dimmed. I hope it never does. And with each passing year, I cherish our birthday trips more deeply, feel our bond deepen, relish in the gratitude of these years I get to spend with my best friend. 

Besides, the sand is never coming out of those carseats