What an incredible day at the beach! Sun, sand, and surfing dogs – add in a few doggles and you can’t beat that combination! Saturday was the 8th Annual Loews Surf Dog Competition, and let me tell you, if you weren’t there, you missed out! The streets of Imperial Beach were jam-packed with cars for miles in every direction; I was shocked at how many people & dogs were there. Then again, this was my first-ever dog surfing competition, so I didn’t know what I was getting myself into… still, I think anyone would have said “wow” upon seeing thousands of human & canine spectators in one place! It was awesome to see everyone supporting the dogs out there in the water; there were huge rounds of applause and cheers for any dog that successfully rode in to shore! And of course plenty of “oooh”s and laughs at the wipeouts! Check out a few of my favorite photos from the event!

  This is Abbie Girl, an Australian kelpie & the champion of the small dog category! She was a total pro.

Sometimes I found the people’s faces just as amusing as the dogs’! Heehee!

And let’s give a little credit to the people out there! I think the dogs may have actually had a pretty easy time, just standing on those boards… their human helpers were always in prime position to get smacked by the waves!

This guy was such a goofball – and a great surfer, too!

These dogs are smart, they know when to jump off & save themselves! Haha! There were lots of funny wipeouts!

Yay! Doggles!!

I was SO impressed by the dogs that actually shared surfboards!! These two worked the board like it was nothing.

Uhhh… bird costumes?? What? Haha, these three definitely had an extra challenge out there.

Some dogs preferred to have human partners.

… and I think some dogs wished they had partners! This dog was so cute; he kept looking back to his people for reassurance!

Here’s another reason the event was so exciting: we were in the presence of celebrities!  This is Ricochet, a service dog that surfs with people with disabilities! She’s an incredible surfer and a beautiful spirit. Check out her website here, and if the videos there don’t make you cry or at least tear up, well, you’re stronger than me. She also has a super-active Facebook page!

And here’s the one-and-only Tillman! He’s mostly famous for skateboarding (check out the video that made him famous; it has 20 million hits, no big deal) but he was out there on a surfboard on Saturday! He won the large dog competition!

Dogs of all different shapes & sizes were out there..

 This one was sooooo excited!

Here’s Ricochet again. taking a shake break.

There was some pretty intense shaking

The day was gorgeous, of course – it’s San Diego! (gorgeous enough to give me a bit of a sunburn, unfortunately. haha oh well.)

I found it fascinating that there were photographers out there, in the waves, with waterproof casings for their cameras! That is DEFINITELY where I want to be next year!!

This photo sums up the spirit of the day, I think – goooo surf dogs! The cheers were so loud! :)

Whew, that was a lot of photos! And believe it or not, these were just my favorite images from the whole event! If you’d like to see more, or if your dog surfed and you’d like to purchase a print or digital image, visit the event gallery here: http://proofs.allisonshamrell.com.

Oh, and here’s something fun: my photos from the competition were internationally published! Here’s the story from the UK Daily Mail, which asked for my photos to include in their article! I thought I’d left the world of journalism photography behind a few years ago… apparently not! :)

I hope you enjoyed seeing all the photos of these talented dogs! If you’ve never been here before, welcome! You’re visitng my blog, which is where I post about recent events (like this one) and sessions. My website is different; it’s where you can check out my whole portfolio and find info about a session with your dogs! Last but not least, my Facebook page is a pretty fun place too! :) Take a look, click “like”, and you’ll get to see more fun photos like these in your newsfeed!

Thanks for visiting!  :)