Earlier this month Mrs The Fyd and I took the dogs for a few days of vacation at the coast.  The place we rented was rather more rural than where we have stayed in the past.  At night I heard the howls of coyotes in the nearby hills.  Across the gravel road was a swamp, or bog, or marsh — I don’t know how they define it.

If the dogs weren’t functional parasites, but were instead used for the purposes of centures if breeding, they would have been right in their element:

Instead, they were allowed to indulge themselves on the beach.  
Since by law all dogs are required to be leashed on Oregon’s beaches, 
this makes me feel a little nervous about the prospects of running afoul 
of the law.  However, dogs gotta run.  Perhaps there are designated 
off-leash beaches.

Boris found a bottle with a message:

The message inside was that apparently of two young lovers who had 
finished the contents and decided to send it to the waters as a token 
of their love.  I hope they didn’t  drink the whole bottle in one night, 
because a whole bottle of Jameson’s will not lead to good love-making.  The young lovers didn’t have the sense to date or give a place 
from which they threw the bottle.  It was probably tossed in the surf the 
night before about ten yards away.

I attempted to send it back, but the dogs kept fetching it:

A woman we met on the beach pointed out bear tracks to us.  We were glad to get home without losing a dogs to bear or coyote.