Leah Bess Murray stands waist deep in Gulf water, stabilizing a 9-foot surfboard atop which four-year-old Ocean Cabrera is suctioned like a starfish. This is only his first surf lesson, but Ocean is about to experience a rite of passage: someone dropping in on his wave.
Murray’s dog Quila is jumping over the whitewater breakers and swimming toward the surfboard, reading the waves instinctively. Once she reaches depth, she briefly stands on her hind legs and balances her front paws on the deck before, at Murray’s command, hopping on board to share the ride.
“She loves it,” Murray says. Quila finishes her surf session by racing Ocean and the surfboard back to shore with a series of dolphin leaps that carry her onto sand, where the zoomies continue. That boundless love and energy is the best motivator for aspiring moondoggies, Murray says; Quila simply wants to be with her while she surfs.
For the past 27 years, the Texas Coastal Bend chapter of the Surfrider Foundation has hosted surfers with disabilities for Make Promises Happen, a day of catching waves in Port Aransas. Along for the ride, tandem on the surfboard, a few good beach boys and girls from Go Team Therapy Dogs learn how to hang paws for the cause.
Nellena McCabe’s border collies have tag-teamed the event for the past seven years, recruiting several of their doggie teammates. “A lot of the riders that participate, they have their favorite dog that they ask for every summer,” she says. “That’s who we’re there for.”
Some surf dogs model water safety, like when a child is nervous around water or resists wearing a lifejacket. “You get a dog to put on theirs and they’re happy as could be,” says Debra Fernandez, “It’s like, well, they’re wearing it. Let’s go.” Her Go Team lab Daisy Mae also learned to surf at Make Promises Happen. “We just put her on the board and she kind of did what she needed to,” she says. “She absolutely loved it.”
Dog goggles can provide protection from the sun and drastically reduce the amount of saltwater hitting their eyes, McCabe says. Lexxa and Kaelani were already well-balanced on paddleboards when she introduced them to surfing. “They were so easy to train to do it, I kind of feel like I’m cheating,” McCabe says. “I tell them to place on the surfboard, they get on it, and they ride the wave. That’s how they learn.”
From there, the surf dog therapy sessions consist mostly of “sit” and “stay.” The doggos hang loose in the lineup, emotionally supporting approximately 30 Make Promises Happen surfers, some of whom use wheelchairs on the shore. All of the surfers are surrounded by volunteers tasked with course-correcting any wipeouts. For those Make Promises Happen surfers who pop up on the board, McCabe says, “I can get Lexxa to ‘sit pretty.’ It’s where she comes up on her hind legs, and she has her front paws in front of her, so it looks like they’re both standing up surfing. It’s really cute.”
At the southern end of Mustang Island, local surfer girl Quila tilts her head whenever she hears “Let’s go surfing.” Murray, who leads surf and yoga retreats in the coastal bend, discovered her mixed-breed dog had caught the stoke when, paddling out one day at Packery Channel, she noticed Quila doggy-paddling out behind her.
“That just happened because she’s in the water so much,” Murray says. “She understands how to read the waves.”
Murray cautions that all canine surf grommets must be strong swimmers. Quila (short for Tranquila, “peaceful” in Spanish) often hangs ten and bails, Murray says, “because she knows we always eat it.”
