For those of you who can’t already guess, we live on a sailboat with a Great Dane. She’s 130 pounds of unruly and lovable dog; and she’s definitely decided the boat is hers and she’ll let everyone know that on cue. Our neighbors (who are also going to be our Baja Ha-Ha Crew) have resorted to feeding her snacks to buy her occasional silence. She’s not that bad since she’s got that lower pitch bark, but some might think she’s loud (I don’t). We’ve worked hard to integrate Quincy into boat life and are aware this is a huge change for her (and us)….so we’re taking it slow. During the week we allow ourselves to put Quincy into doggy day-care for full or half days (during specific projects) but we’re slowly weaning ourselves off this luxury as we get closer to leaving. We’ve also broken her into her doggy life-jacket, taken her out to anchor and will complete at least one overnight passage with her onboard before we head down Baja. Leaving San Diego in November will be a full up 3-day passage out of sight of land right out of the gate…so we’re already explored buying Quincy a piece of her own fake grass from the doggy day care that we can fashion into her “spot” on the bow (we’ll see how well this works). We’ve seen other dogs on boats (on YouTube) and have even contacted a few boats out there with dogs (courtesy of help from Sailing Totem) but we’ve already made the decision we’re not going places where she would be under a crazy quarantine or have to never get off the boat. We love having a dog on the boat and I feel bringing her adds to the feeling of the boat being a home….we don’t really need a “land house” to bring that spirit into our lives. Whether a boat is part of a small house movement or not, Quincy the Great Dane has fit into our lives on the boat and we’re making it work and working to make it. Yep, it’s work sometimes to manage and live with a 130-pound Great Dane on a sailboat, especially when you know you’re going to untie the lines in the next four months and start traveling.
Here’s Quincy observing a boat re-naming on our dock last weekend. She did really, really well and didn’t have to bark at hardly anyone. 
If you’re new to the blog or just visiting…Quincy writes a column of advice and wisdom every Sunday except today. My daughter writes the Friday post and I try to write about boat stuff for the M/W/S posts. We’d LOVE to have you follow us, subscribe to our YouTube Site and check out our Patreon Site. Quincy will have a 4th of July post up for all of you soon!
