Hello All, We have a 1 year old lab and she loves waters. We are in the process of buying a house with a pool and would like to teach her to only jump in when we say its okay. We're trying to avoid situations where we open up the door to grab something and suddenly we have a soaking wet dog in the house! We would still let her play in the pool with us or let her swim when we say its okay. Any advise on how we train our dog to do this? Thanks!
Hi Chrisk, Welcome to the Forum...I live in this setup,pool in the garden and my fear was exactly the same ...wet dog in the house all the time..... My dog was just not allowed in the pool for the first 2 years of his life ( yes,I know I was very mean and I'm not suggesting you do that ) He doesn't love swimming ,I think his early experiences of VERY salty water have something to do with that,but this reluctance helped me immensely.... If he showed interest then 'Leave' was sufficient .You might have to really get your Leave cue strong for this to work if your dog loves water. Start as you mean to go on,swimming in the pool is a privilege that comes from you ,if you don't let free access from the very beginning you will have a much easier time training the behaviour you desire. I had to train Dexter to go in,even now he won't just jump off the side ,he will only go in down the steps.....he goes in on his release cue ,'ok' he comes out on his recall cue 'Dexter Come' ...... To be fair ( again I am going to sound horrible) my dog doesn't have unsupervised access to our garden so that helps a lot .....but he's slipped into bad habits since we've had our seasonal run of visitors ( folk who leave my doors Open onto the garden that allows him free access) What I'm finding now is while I'm pottering about doing something outside,I hear the 'plop' and he's in,cheeky little bugger ,you should see his little face paddling about all,pleased with himself I get home from some overseas travel this weekend so I'll address that but for now we've got the steps blocked off with sun beds or he's under close supervision so he's not practising a behaviour I don't want! I sound such a meanie ,but wet dog several,times a day isn't fun and would be downright dangerous on my tiled floors. It's great fun having a swim round with him,although you have to be careful of the 'rake' of their claws,they are really powerful in the water.Also to add,it sounds obvious but make sure your dog knows where to get out ....if our pool is busy Dexter can seem to get a bit disorientated swimming round and round excitably between people ,a very experienced Member on here suggested me leaving a marker by the steps to show him where to get out ....I used an upturned plant pot,although saying 'step' to him seems to do the same Good luck,enjoy your swims together x X
This is my fantasy for if I ever get off my duff and buy a house in Spain. I want my own pool so my dog (when I get him) can swim as much as he wants - which he couldn't now as my rented townhouse has a shared pool so no doggies allowed (although Brogan used to hang out on the edge of the pool and keep me company when I swam). So for this reason I was indeed curious to see how people trained their dogs to live with the temptation of the pool and not be constantly wet (and also for safety considerations). Hopefully I will get to use that info one day!
I read your title and giggled ... "Impossible" was my first thought, especially with my water baby. It might be possible to train him to only go in if you are in the water. Somewhere there is au tube clip of dogs playing on a water slide into a pool while the owners were out. They are having far too much fun!
Neighbours across the road handled it differently. They taught the dogs how to climb the short ladder to get out. The man who owned the house and pool before them did find a strange dog in the pool one morning, thrashing about and thus not drowned yet. He hauled it out, it bit him in the process, then it took off and he never found out where it lived. Or how it got in their fully fenced yard.
Thanks for the reply! It will definitely be a challenge, she certainly loves the water and while we don't want to discourage it, we want her under control! She wont have access to the pool while were away; the side yard will be converted into a largish dog run area which she will have access to all day. She's a smart girl so hopefully she learns not to jump in quickly!
