Start with the rules, because they change by beach and by month
Dog access to popular beaches is rarely a simple yes or no. Many resorts ban dogs from the main bathing beach during the summer season while allowing them on a section beyond the breakwater, on the promenade on a lead, or on the whole beach early and late in the day. The beach two coves along may have no restrictions at all. Check the specific beach, the specific days of your trip, and where the boundary signs actually stand, because fines and confrontations with wardens are a poor start to a holiday — and because a banned main beach usually means the permitted alternative is quieter and better for a dog anyway.
Let the tide table set your walking times
Tides decide what a beach is. At low tide many holiday beaches become wide firm sand, rock pools, and room to play away from other people; at high tide the same beach can shrink to a strip of soft shingle against the seawall where an off-lead game is impossible. Plan main walks for the falling and low tide, and check times daily, since they shift by roughly an hour each day and a plan made on Monday is wrong by Thursday.
Rock pools and wet sand are gifts for dogs — sniffing, paddling, digging — but cut paws on sharp shells and barnacles are the common injury of beach holidays. Carry water and a small first aid kit, check pads after pool sessions, and rinse salt and sand from her coat and feet in the evening, especially between the toes where grit chafes.
Keep midday for shade, whatever the tide is doing
Heat is the hard limit that tides cannot move. A dog running on hot sand in midday sun, drinking seawater because she is thirsty, is heading for trouble: burnt pads, overheating, and the vomiting and diarrhoea that swallowed salt water reliably produces. Structure the day so exercise happens early and in the evening cool, and midday is a shaded base — a windbreak or parasol she has learned to settle under, a damp towel to lie on, and constant access to fresh water you carried in rather than the sea she fancies.
Discourage sea-drinking from the first swim by offering fresh water immediately before and after she goes in. If she does drink a lot of seawater or seems unwell after a beach session — restless, sick, unusually thirsty — contact a local vet rather than waiting for the holiday to absorb it.
Manage the crowded-beach realities
A permitted beach in season is full of things a dog finds difficult: picnics at nose height, toddlers with food, balls that are not hers, and other dogs on leads in narrow spaces. Keep her on a long line in the busy zone even if she is usually reliable, position your base away from the busiest stretch, and give her a job she knows — settling on her mat with a chew — rather than expecting her to ignore a fairground of smells.
Know your meeting point if she ranges too far
Busy beaches swallow a ranging dog's recall — wind, gulls, and a hundred distractions — and a dog who bolts along the shoreline can cover a mile before she looks up. Agree a family meeting point, keep phones on and charged, and make sure her collar details carry the mobile you have with you, not a home number. In an unfamiliar resort, that preparation matters: her alert appears on a map in KinsLe's Lost Pet Alert System, and someone who finds her can send you a direct message through it.