The Dogs of San Francisco

Cacau, who traveled here from Brazil to compete, won both the overall champion crown and the stand-up paddle-board category, plus tied with Koa in the ‘extra large dog’ solo category and did pretty well in ‘human-dog tandem’ too. (In what world are Labrador retrievers ‘extra large’? Well, in a world where Great Danes do not spend much time on surf boards.) Cacau also joined Koa in to compete in the dog/dog tandem surfing category, and while they didn’t won, man oh man were they having fun!

I got SO MANY pictures from the dog surfing championships! And SO MANY of them were of the face a small child that was inexplicably being held up on someone’s shoulders BACKWARDS and jiggled back and forth a few dozen feet in front of my camera. If you’re going to hold your child up, you could at least let them watch the dogs surfing? I dunno.

Also a lot of them were of people’s cell phones which they were holding up over their heads. And most of the rest were out of focus — did I mention I reeeeally need to replace my lens? — or over or underexposed. That last was intentional, I used exposure bracketing.

Anyway, I’ll be posting them gradually, but to start with let’s see Koa. Koa was the champion in 2024, and it wasn’t hard to see why: she was easily the most enthusiastic pup. As soon as they started heading down towards the water, she started barking her head off and trying to rush them, and she did not stop barking the entire time she was surfing. Just so much happiness she couldn’t keep it in. She is also a cancer survivor and eleven years old. And, frankly, an inspiration to me. If she can surf, maybe it’s not even too late for me!