Shelties and Water!

Sadie loves the water but not swimming so much. Since some of her best friends love to swim I'm hoping watching them will coax her to swim more.

When Milo was young he too loved playing in the water, but now that he's almost 8 he doesn't like extreme weather or wetness of any kind and prefers being inside as much as possible :rolleyes2:
 
showers yes, swimming no

My ziek loves taking a shower. If he wants a shower he'll walk right in when we turn on the water for ourselves. He also loves drinking fresh water so he'll drink the water from the shower head. BUT swimming is something he doesn't enjoy. The first time I gently put him in my parents' pool he swam to the side to try to figure a way to get out. He's a good swimmer though. I taught him where the small steps were so after that everytime we put him in the pool he goes straight to the steps and sits there or just walks out of the pool. Thankfully for him we don't have a pool so no extra excerises for him.
 
This is Chinook and water. Yah, he and water are like oil and water. (he fell in by accident :lol: it was hilarious to watch, but what a mess after he decided to roll around in sand and grass :uhoh::eek2:)
 
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Swimming in the pool

Any comments on that. IS that a problem for the coat, skin, eyes?

Has anyone ever had your dog in the pool?
 
Just like with people....

... too much chlorine and other chemicals can be drying to doggie coats and skin. I've known people that let their golden retrievers swim at will in the pool. They would rinse the dogs thoroughly with a hose afterwards, brushing out the coat while doing so.

Also like people, I'll bet this is an individual thing. Some dogs will probably tolerate it just fine, others may get dry, itchy skin, brittle coats and so on.
 
Indy goes for it.....!

Setting the scene...it's cloudy and cool (yes, like every day this summer). Water temperature is 68 degrees in the St. Lawrence River. Our cottage is on the main Canadian channel so it's very wide and extremely strong current. The water on the outside of our dock is 30 to 40 feet deep.

We're on the dock and I ask David to take out the Sea Doo and scoot back and forth in front of the dock and in circles so I can experiment with taking action shots with my camera. We do this a bunch of times, and I'm busy scanning through the photo's that I've taken - head down, not paying attention. David starts waving and shouting at me from the Sea Doo. I think that he's asking if I want him to do a couple more pass-bys! I wave my hand, yes! Then I finally clue in that something is wrong....

Indy was having so much fun following the action that he decided to join in!

Dave caught it out of the corner of his eye. Indy was jumping around and it's not clear if he purposefully jumped out into the water or if he jumped up in excitement and missed his landing....either way he was in the water.

As I said the current is very strong and he was instantly transported from the top of the dock to the end - seconds really! I threw myself down on the dock and managed to catch his collar before he got swept beyond. The poor pup was scrabbling at the side of the dock. But the dock is high and there is no way I could haul him up. All I could do was hold him. David brought the SeaDoo around and I managed to get Indy onto the back (so Indy got two adventures: swimming and sea-dooing!).

So today, we wanted to see if Indy would jump in if David was in the water swimming. Indy was very close to going in, but I think he scared himself a little yesterday.

It's very nerve-wracking. David told me when this happened yesterday that if this should ever happen when I'm alone with the pups that I am NOT to attempt a rescue as I'm not strong enough to handle a panicked pup! I told HIM to go jump in the lake! As if I was just going to stand on the dock and watch the pup go under!

All to say, that we have to do some risk planning here. I'm hoping the temperature increases enough this week so that by next weekend, I can actually swim with Indy and guide him to how to get to shore safely.

Life vests are an option but he would have to wear it 24 hours! Not a great choice.

Silly pups!
 
btw - here is a picture of Indy that show just how interested he is in the water and how high the dock is....
 
BarbV said:
All to say, that we have to do some risk planning here. I'm hoping the temperature increases enough this week so that by next weekend, I can actually swim with Indy and guide him to how to get to shore safely.
Click to expand...

Good thinking. Deska still will not go into the water after the time in dashed in after some ducks in -5degrees and got stuck. Now I did have to think about whether to go into the water after him - it was cold after all! He looks longingly out at the ducks now but wont enter, even when its hot and even at my mums pool. I think when they have such a thick coat that can easily weigh them down it is really important to have an eye on them and teach them how to get out of trouble.
 
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