Dogs find best friends at Compo BeachBy: Alice frascella '25 and olivia saw '26
Compo Beach has once again opened up their shores to any and all dogs, and will be allowing owners to walk their dogs along designated areas of the beach from Oct 1 to March 31. The beach is a perfect place for puppies to make new furry friends, and for Alice Frascella ’25, it means that her English golden retriever, 5 year old Fletcher (aka Fletch), can make new friends! However, according to Frascella, Fletch only deserves the best of the best, so today’s mission is to find his perfect best friend.
Fletch Frascella (above) is an extrovert and he's not very particular about who he wants to be friends with. However, since he's an English golden retriever, he absolutely loves to swim and therefore his best friend will need to love swimming too. He is also extremely energetic, so he needs a friend who can keep up!
This is 13 year old Callie. After sniffing each other for a while, it seemed like Fletch liked Callie well enough. Even better, Callie loves to swim, according to her owner Brandon Michaels. However, she's not as active as Fletch is. "She doesn't go out a lot, and she's not as athletic as she once was," Michaels said. Unfortunately, Fletch is extremely active, so while Callie can't be his best friend, they still left off on a great note!
After Fletch ran (almost into the street), we met Dean Goddard and his pup Murphy! Murphy will be seven in November; a much closer age gap then Chip! Although the two seemed to be clicking and tails were wagging, Goddard and Murphy only come twice a year. Goddard used to come to Compo beach often as a child. "I spent a lot of weekends here in the 70s, came to the beach quite a lot in the 80s, 90s,” Goddard said. This saddened the conversation for Fletch.
As Murphy and Fletch played, they stayed on land as Murphy apparently isn’t a water rat like Fletch. “He's a funny dog," Goddard said. "He doesn’t really like to get his paws wet. I’ve never seen him swim, and you would think being a hound he wouldn’t mind that type of thing.” Even though Fletch made a nice friend, he kept eyeing the water and continued to keep going back to it during interactions! We both knew he needed a best friend who would be available to play more often and more importantly, be a swimmer!
Next up, Fletch got introduced to Chip! According to Chip’s owner Ron Offier, Chip loves coming down to the beach. “It's one of his favorite things since they opened it up in October,” Offier said. At five months old, Chip is friendly, playful and adorable! Though a great candidate for a friend, the age gap is quite a difference, but maybe Fletch could be a mentor to Chip as he has more experience and wisdom at age five!
Finally, we found Obie the corgi. Although he's tiny, he was extremely playful and definitely kept up with Fletch's energy. Not only that, but he has lots of things in common with Fletch! "He likes to eat treats, go on walks and play fetch," Obie's owner, Christa Richards, said. Fletch, the chunky dog he is, also loves treats. However, Richards mentioned that Obie doesn't really enjoy swimming. "He doesn't like to swim, but he can," Richards said. Although this was a minor setback, Fletch still seemed to really enjoy Obie.
After a while of searching for a new best friend, Fletch decided to stop the search and play with his new friends instead. Although he couldn't find his perfect match today, Fletch will definitely count on coming back often to the beach to keep searching. Since Compo Beach is open to dogs until March 31, Fletch still has many more opportunities to find a best friend. Compo is a place for dogs to bond over the beach, and who knows? Maybe your dog will find a best friend too.