One of my biggest complaints about living in Los Angeles is its lack of dog-friendly beaches. We have countless miles of sand and coastline and you can hardly go anywhere with a pooch.

People don’t understand why I barely spend any time in a beach chair or lying out, but would parents rush to the beach if they couldn’t take their children? It’s the same for me as a dog mom.

I understand safety (and cleanliness) concerns, but it’s a travesty that families planning a day at the beach have to leave their dogs at home.

This is where Rosie’s Dog Beach is supposed to come in, but it falls drastically short.

I guess beggars can’t be choosers, but little did I know when we showed up in Long Beach (about a 45-minute car ride for us, and Agnes isn’t too fond of the car to begin with, unless she’s in your lap) that it was going to be a small coned-off section of beach. I thought we’d spend an afternoon there watching Agnes hop in and out of the waves, but it’s so densely-packed that the animals, understandably, are going berserk.

Sure it was fun to watch Agnes get her webbed paws wet, and she even swam for a millisecond unknowingly chasing after a ball, but it’s not that idyllic spot where dog and owner can run and splash free to their hearts’ content.