By Our new neighborhood is full of fun things like two saltwater pools and a splash pad for the kiddos, dog parks, mountain biking and hiking trails, cool outdoor fitness equipment, different playgrounds for the kids every quarter mile or so and some neat wildlife can be seen, too. One of our favorite things we’ve done here thus far was Pups at the Pool.
The pool officially closed for humans on September 16th, but before they drain them for the year, they opened them up for our 4-legged babies. We knew we couldn’t take Bud as he doesn’t do well around other dogs (our 2nd date was at a dog park and also the last time Bud got to go to a dog park) and the environment itself would have been very stressful for him. But Tucker, he’s usually okay with other dogs as long as they aren’t trying to dominate him or take his toys, so we figured we’d give it a shot.
Upon entering the pool, you had to keep your dog on the leash until they felt comfortable. This was actually the hardest part for Tucker. He was so curious about what other dogs were doing and wanted to check everything out. I started to walk out into the pool and he followed excitedly, so we decided he was doing well enough to be off-leash.
I think this might have been Tucker’s favorite day of the summer. He’s never been much of a swimmer (defective labrador?) but he LOVED the pool. I think he’s like his mama and only likes water that he can see his feet in! Thankfully, we had taken Tucker’s favorite orange squeaky ball. He was a world-class retriever on this day. And only once was his ball stolen by another dog and we had to chase it down (he gets very panicky when someone else has his toy and looks to us for help).
We could not have been more proud of our big boy on that day. He was so friendly and happy the whole time. We’re guessing there were somewhere between 45-55 dogs there at any given time. And I might be biased, but I think he was the most handsome dog in the pool. 
Chapel Hill Baby 