Ziggy ditched the life jacket! No more splashing around and giving me heart failure. Woohoo ;D, look at my big white spaniel gliding through the water. ;D
Re: Ziggy cooling off majestic Riley was a complete doofus in the river today. Goodness knows what had passed through earlier but he was utterly distracted by someone/somethings trail and spent the whole time in his nose. A couple of poor retrieves later back to the car and the shade of home the heat always sends him a bit funny
Re: Ziggy cooling off Here is another one. I'm so happy he is swimming properly at last. I'm so used to natural swimmers that Ziggy's swimming style had me really alarmed. But we got there in the end.
Re: Ziggy cooling off Lovely photos Heidrun , sadly our swimming sessions were halted by the prescence of a very large cow in the water
Re: Ziggy cooling off More pictures for Charlie when he is crying into the back of my wetsuit because we are trying to get him to get his paws wet...definitely going to try the river this weekend. OH not keen because he likes the beach and wants Charlie to enjoy it too - he thinks Charlie needs to "dog up" a bit.... (Which might be a tiny bit true...)
Re: Ziggy cooling off Julie, you'll have a much better chance of getting Charlie to swim by getting him mad keen on retrieving on land first and then take him to some nice warm pond or shallow river, not the sea, too scary for a pup!
Re: Ziggy cooling off I think that's right, for sure - the sea is very scary. Just got to convince OH - who is a mad keen sea swimmer, and has spent a lot of time sitting in the (freezing) sea trying to encourage Charlie to give it a go... : Charlie seems obviously mad keen on water generally - he was doing what I call "bum runs" in excitement when he saw a small river, and will jump in big puddles and very small streams. He will fetch his ball from the shallows of the sea, even though he is clearly not keen. He won't go in otherwise though.
Re: Ziggy cooling off Definitely agree that the sea is scary for a lot of doggies - small or big doggies! And salt water tastes yucky. Flat, still water is much friendlier
Re: Ziggy cooling off Totally agree with the others Julie , its taken me about 20 months to get Sam to swim , just baby steps all the way, no forcing the issue, just gentle encouragement . He is a proper water baby now but for some time , we doubted that he would ever get there . My old Lab Tess adores swimming from being a young pup but even she never really liked the sea , gentle shelving edges of river and lakes are the best places for confidence
