Maxx behaves quite strangely when we take him up to our swimming pool. I'll outline his behaviour (sorry for long post) At first he runs around sniffing and playing in the garden area, completely ignoring us in the pool Eventually he will come to the edge of the pool and stalk up and down right on the edge like a caged lion watching our every movement carefully Hubby will go and sit on the steps and Maxx will start barking and frantically biting at him. Once I swear he was trying to pull him out by the arm The only way to stop him barking is to pick him up and sit him gently on the top step. He then sits down and looks either confused or contented...you know that little scrunched up face He starts pawing at the water and looks like he is trying to get off the step into the pool. Hubby gently floats him around the pool holding onto his tummy and Maxx makes swimming movements with all four paws We let him go about 1/2 a metre from the top step and he swims back by himself. We want to make sure he can swim confidently in case he ever falls in and we are at the other end or something (he will never be there unsupervised and the pool fence is impenetrable) He immediately jumps out, shakes and runs off - ignoring us again Would love to hear your thoughts about whether you think he likes the pool (or ever will). Our old lab LOVED the water but we didn't have a pool then. We took him to the beach a lot and he would swim all day if we let him. It might be that Maxx is still young (17 weeks) and needs time?
Caspar doesn't seem to like the water much either but that may be because here it is pretty cold. Our last Lab was a fantastic swimmer but he would never jump into water, only walk in from the shallows and transition to swim when out of his depth. He didn't start to swim until he was about 6 months.
Not all labs like water. My girl fell in a duck pond when she was 3/4 months old and would only paddle after this, she wouldn’t swim. At about 7/8 months old she suddenly decided she liked water and swimming and has had a love of swimmers no ever since. I would give him time and let him approach at his own pace or you might make him scared.
Yep, there are weirdo Labs who aren't crazy about water. Xena paddles only, but never swims (loves hose play, though). A friend's Lab hates the water altogether. Maxx is still young, though, he's got plenty of time to change his mind!
Thanks for your thoughts! We are going away in 3 weeks for a long weekend to my Sister's holiday house down the South Coast of NSW. They are 300m from the beach and it's dog friendly so it will be interesting to see whether he likes to paddle in the water from a walk-in perspective rather than having to jump in or be placed in. The water temp is 23 degrees Celsius (74 fahrenheit) so quite warm luckily. I'll give an update
Sounds like he is a bit young to experience being suddenly out of his depth. Labs although mostly like water well enough, this can vary from being content with paddling in puddles right through to a channel swimmer! The best way to ensure a successful relationship with water and swimming is to allow the pup to make the choice to enter. Never physically place or throw them in, especially if it's deep. At gundog training, we start by throwing treats at the very water's edge (shallow part) and praising the dogs for entering the water, then very gradually building to floating toys. This way the dog builds confidence and learns to enjoy the experience.
Ripple didn't like the water at all to start with, he did the pawing at it thing as well. I ended up taking him to a hydrotherapy pool for swimming lessons and he did eventually start to enjoy it. I also took him to some old outdoor seawater swimming pools to encourage him to do water retrieves. Now he seems to love the water, runs in and out of the sea, swims in the sea and even did a proper retrieve in a reservoir when I went out with the gundog trainer. He's probably still a bit cautious sometimes, but I'm glad I took the time to teach him. I believe with Ripple it was all a matter of confidence and slowly, slowly was the right approach .
My late boy had an "incident " with water when he was very young , it took him a long time to pluck up courage to enter any water ,but when he did he loved it .
