Swimming/being around water..

[Cassidy's Mom]

Mine have all loved water, but not all of them have gone into deep water and swam without some initial coaxing, and for those I did exactly what Nancy describes. Dena was around water from around 4 months old, but she was 8 or 9 months old before she actually swam for the first time. She'd splash around in the shallows as a puppy, she'd wade up to her belly, but if her ball floated out further she'd watch it go. We took her to Point Isabel, an off leash park on the SF Bay, nearly every weekend and as she got a little older and more confident in the water we started tossing the ball out a few feet further to where she had to swim a couple of strokes to get it. After that there was no stopping her!

Keefer followed Dena out the first time he was in water deep enough to swim in, at about 5 months old, and has been swimming ever since. Halo was around water a couple of times before she swam - not as fast as Keefer, but nowhere near as long as Dena. Now I can hardly keep either of them OUT of the water!

[lkellen]

I will definitely have to try those suggestions! Hopefully next summer (she'll be about a year and a half by then) she'll be a little water bug!


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[Cstout]

Mine LOVES the water, if we're at the park and I dont feel like dealing with a wet dog I dont allow him in the water... I swear he will 'accidentally' drop his toy in the water then look at me like "well, now I have to go in and get it mom!" I cant keep him out of it.
But, when he was a small puppy he didnt like it. I got him to like it by going in myself... and he HAS to be near me, so he moaned and groaned his way over to me and just learned that it wasnt so bad. Then we started playing fetch in the water, and like I said now I cant keep him out of it.

[kiya]

I don't think I've ever had a dog not love the beach. Kiya loves the kiddie pool, puddles anything, she'll even dunk her whole face in the water. Apache & Lakota love the beach but not the kiddie pool. I get in the pool & try to coax them in, I put toys in the pool Apache feels he must take them out right away. Lakota would let the toys stay forever. I was really suprised the year before we took her to a friends house and he let me bring her in the pool, he was hoping his dog would follow. It only took a few encouraging words and she came right in. His dog ran the other way.
Even at the beach they prefer I went in with them, the worst is I have to swim away from them to avoid claw marks. OMG you should see some of those marks, good thing they aren't deep and go a way quickly.

[Kyleigh]

Ky didn't like it her first summer (she was so young tho!) but she loved her doggie pool and had a blast in that.

This summer, I was hard pressed to keep her out. Her best motivation? The ducks LOL ... she saw those ducks and she was running after them 90 miles an hour ... good thing she's loud so they had ample warning!

You've had some great advice ... now you just need water!

have fun with it ... and careful what you wish for LOL ... Kyleigh wet is NOT a fun job!

[lkellen]

Originally Posted by Cstout

Mine LOVES the water, if we're at the park and I dont feel like dealing with a wet dog I dont allow him in the water... I swear he will 'accidentally' drop his toy in the water then look at me like "well, now I have to go in and get it mom!" I cant keep him out of it.
But, when he was a small puppy he didnt like it. I got him to like it by going in myself... and he HAS to be near me, so he moaned and groaned his way over to me and just learned that it wasnt so bad. Then we started playing fetch in the water, and like I said now I cant keep him out of it.

Originally Posted by kiya

I don't think I've ever had a dog not love the beach. Kiya loves the kiddie pool, puddles anything, she'll even dunk her whole face in the water. Apache & Lakota love the beach but not the kiddie pool. I get in the pool & try to coax them in, I put toys in the pool Apache feels he must take them out right away. Lakota would let the toys stay forever. I was really suprised the year before we took her to a friends house and he let me bring her in the pool, he was hoping his dog would follow. It only took a few encouraging words and she came right in. His dog ran the other way.
Even at the beach they prefer I went in with them, the worst is I have to swim away from them to avoid claw marks. OMG you should see some of those marks, good thing they aren't deep and go a way quickly.

Originally Posted by Kyleigh

Ky didn't like it her first summer (she was so young tho!) but she loved her doggie pool and had a blast in that.

This summer, I was hard pressed to keep her out. Her best motivation? The ducks LOL ... she saw those ducks and she was running after them 90 miles an hour ... good thing she's loud so they had ample warning!

You've had some great advice ... now you just need water!

have fun with it ... and careful what you wish for LOL ... Kyleigh wet is NOT a fun job!

Y'all are lucky! I've never had a dog that loves the water. Over the summer, however, my parents' Wheaten Terrier mix will float on a pool raft for hours.. lol. It's a pretty funny sight to see.

[Lilie]

Hondo loves the water. He doesn't like to play in it, he likes to take a slow swim around and stand /sit / lay in the shallows. He will fetch a toy if I ask him to, but he'd rather just enjoy the water on his own terms.

[kiya]

Originally Posted by Lilie

Hondo loves the water. He doesn't like to play in it, he likes to take a slow swim around and stand /sit / lay in the shallows. He will fetch a toy if I ask him to, but he'd rather just enjoy the water on his own terms.

Thats too funny and sounds exactly like Apache. When I take the dogs to the North Shore beach, theres a "creek" we call it, it gets dredged so it can be deep. One day it was just me and Apache. We were both in the water facing the shore. He was very still and I realized his hind end was on top of the water, he was floating. He had his front paws on the bottom and because of the incline, his hind end was floating. It was so funny watching the expression on his face.