TRURO — It’s eight o’clock in the morning, and the traffic at Corn Hill Beach is heavy. This strip of sand on the bay side is a downtown of sorts in a small town that lacks one. The dog people congregate at the beach’s entrance, chatting as they take plastic bags from the dispenser that the town provides. Gradually the pack begins to move, turning right and heading north toward Great Hollow Beach with pups of all sizes, breeds, and colors weaving between their humans.
The routine starts early because pets are not allowed on Truro beaches between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. from the third Saturday in June through Labor Day. During the summer, some 30 dogs and their owners walk together most days.
Hopper, a lanky chocolate Labrador retriever, sits 20 feet ahead of the pack. He’s waiting for Bryan Monzella, his owner, to throw a tennis ball into the water for him. Monzella brings extras in case the smaller dogs steal them. That’s an important lesson out here: beware of the small dogs.
The group hasn’t made it far before the first poop is announced. Everyone shouts the owner’s name and points to the offending dog, high up near the dune.
There’s a system in these moments. The little bags are left to be picked up on the return trip — though without fail someone forgets to pick one up. Guilty searches ensue.
A graying black Lab named Lucy waddles behind everyone else. Lucy has to turn around earlier these days, owner Nancy McDermott says, but she still loves her morning walks. McDermott lives in Wellfleet but started bringing her dogs to Corn Hill in 2012.
“When I first moved up here to Wellfleet, I used to go walking there,” she says, “but there was never a ‘See you tomorrow.’ ”
Here there is. Lucy Kaplansky, owner of Janie the beagle, compares the gatherings to “a cocktail party where you like everybody and there are no drinks.”
Beach conversations happen in a kind of dance. A discussion about a recent heat wave is interrupted by a dog rolling in something it shouldn’t. John Musnuff, owner of black Labs Jagee and Douglas, says that “it takes like a month to finish a conversation.”
Maybe there’s a natural upper limit to the group’s size, which has started to slow its pace. “It can take an hour easily to go maybe half a mile,” says Jean Hey, who owns Benny the poodle with her partner, Shelley Brauer. “There’s a lot of standing around.”
When the daily walks began, “there was hardly anybody on the beach,” McDermott remembers. But the number of Corn Hill dog-walkers has multiplied since the pandemic, she says.
Monzella hosts an annual potluck for the group over Memorial Day weekend. Last year, around 50 dog-walkers attended, he says. Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin was there. “You get to know everybody’s story,” Monzella says. A few of the dog-walkers are invited to his wedding in December.
At the turn-around point, McDermott steps into a familiar role: she is the treat lady. The dogs surround her in a semicircle, doing their best to “sit, stay” as McDermott goes down the line, handing out cookies.
Truro’s rush-hour participants find their shoes next to the wooden walkway, deposit their poop-filled bags in the town’s trash can, and wave goodbye. They’ll be back tomorrow.
Chloe Taft will be senior this fall at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge.
