Recently my family and I trekked down from Ohio to Florida to compete in the 2015 South Florida Rottweiler Klub RKNA Breed Show near Miami.  After the show, we had a day to spare before heading back.  Beach day!

I have family that lives in FL (I went to college in FL and used to live there myself) in the Port St. Lucie area.  I asked before coming down about dog friendly beaches and they told us about Walton Rocks Beach Dog Park.  I really didn’t know what to expect as I didn’t have time to research the park before I went.  As a rule of thumb, I avoid taking my dogs to “dog parks” – you tend to run into dogs of both varying degrees of training, temperament, and unfortunately vaccination.  But, we decided to give this park a try.

Having lived in the Port St. Lucie area, I knew the drive to the beaches itself was a real treat – you have to go over a causeway from Port St. Lucie proper to Hutchinson Island:

As you might expect, the beach with the dog park was at the far end of the beach area, near a nuclear power plant.  I had fairly low expectations going in, assuming that if the county were going to designate a section of the beach as being a dog park, it wouldn’t be a very nice nice beach.  I couldn’t have been more mistaken – Walton Rocks is a fantastic beach!  When you pull into the parking area, there are bathrooms, trash cans, and even a bag dispenser to clean up “doggie doodoo.”  Near the bathrooms there was a small area to rinse of both people and dogs of salt water – a huge convenience we totally weren’t expecting.

We first brought our two Rottweilers out to the beach first to get some photos and let them play a bit:

Then it was time to bring out our labs and let them have some fun – they REALLY enjoyed the water!

We had a fantastic time and the park itself was just what we needed to cap off a nice trip.  When we come down next year for the Miami show, we will definitely plan on spending more time at Walton Rocks Beach.