If only we could be more like our “live for the moment” domesticated companions. My Great Dane loves the Atlantic – she was a few months old when she first found her way onto the Yzerfontein main beach and she has loved each excursion since then, 8 years of smells, hot sun and excruciatingly cold water. These days after a run she stops and stares at her chest as though she is wondering where the pain is coming from, so I tease her and tell her I will leave her just there in the sand and the water if she dares succumb to a heart attack while on a walk. She looks at me and wags her tail. Regardless of what it costs her – just for today she has had one more miracle to contend with – who cares about global warming and ailing health. Let’s keep going with the passion, mobility and joy of being alive. I admire her for that, and as I will inevitably have to mourn her passing at some point over the next few years I will try to remember to be glad of that great big heart she carries.