INTRODUCING A WEIM TO WATER

[gary70]

hi folks,
just some advice please on my dogs and water.
wilson is 10 months old now and is very outgoing and confident however he is reluctant to go in lakes,rivers etc.
he is only interested in going in up to his knee height.
he is fascinated by water and spends most of his time stood at the edge of a lake with his tail wagging barking at the ducks.
i don't want to force him in to the wate, i would rather he would enter at his own pace.
i'm sure he will love it once he has been baptised
any advice on how to speed up the process anyone?
thanks
gary

[marjolein]

I wouldn't force either, but try to lure him in. Is there anything that he finds really valuable?
I have a rescue at the mo who doesn't swim yet. He doesn't dare to go in, but is a keen retriever. I throw him dummies in the water and he'll try to grab them. He has swam twice now, trying to get that dummy and his confidence is really growing.
Another option is to wait till it's a bit warmer and then go in with him.

[gary70]

marjolein said:

Another option is to wait till it's a bit warmer and then go in with him.

knowing my luck i'll end up in a lake knee deep in mud getting attacked by swans and ducks

[tasha]

I did nearly everything to get bonnie in the water and I am not someone who swims but we ended up doing it an old fashioned way...ducks

I had rope tied around me and towed her in, paddled with her, threw toys in, had other dogs swimming to encourage her in etc but in the end I went out in a small boat on a duck lake (approx 500) and she got so excited that she now has no problems going in the water and is used to guided them up and down the lake ready for the guns or flighting.

[daniela]

Joking aside, you have to be careful of the swans!

I took my old boy swimming in the lake where I live. I had a quick look around to make sure there were no swans et al. Couldn't see anything. Threw out a dumbbell on to the island for him to do a retrieve and on his way back to me, out the corner of my eye, I saw a swan skating across the top of the water. It was not happy and its wing span, oh my! I was positively mortified and was prepared to jump into that lake and I don't do water!

I am pretty sure everyone else thought that Jaws was in that lake. I was screaming "swim, swim Charlie"....thankfully, my boy was a lot calmer than me. He glimpsed the swan out of the corner of his eye, and carried on merrily back to me.

[tasha]

you were lucky swans have a habit of trying to dunk a dog, we don't get them so often here but we do get geese occassionally... they aren't so brave

If you could have seen bonnie at the working tests a couple of years ago you'd have laughed, we used to get points for her putting her toes in the water. I have high hopes for this year because now that she's got the hang of it, she swims like a demon we just have to do a little work on her directions

[emma]

Aku was also reluctant to start swimming first. He loved the water but swimming was a little bit scary. His first experience was actually that he ran directly in to the river and just dived... luckily he got up but he looked so surprised that the water didn't carry him! ;D
Finally I went with him in the water and I held him when he trained swimming. This was also a good way of teaching him swim without the front legs above water line all the time. When he realized he wouldn´t sink, he started to swim very nicely. After that he very quickly started swimming by himself. He looks very funny when he swims around in the river without any particular reason, just like a walk in the park ;D

[rute_paredes]

my boy Iago is turning 2 years old this April and although we havent' had that many chances to actually encourage him to swim, he has shown himself quite reluctant the times we did. (we don't have many lakes in our vicinity).
When he was a 4 month old pup we were vacationing near a big lake. He had been around the water all day, inside a row boat, etc and he had shown neither fear nor great interest. I went in for a swim and all of a sudden, after sniffing around the water for a while, he ran across the little wodden pier and jumped off the deep end right into the water.

But with this exception, he has not been very keen on going in past his depth so to speak.
We tried luring him in with foating toys, taking him with us and holding him but he is fearful nonetheless. He hasnt yet realized that he will not sink I think


Our latest efforts:
umdiadecaozinho.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_umdiadecaozinho_archive.html
umdiadecaozinho.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_umdiadecaozinho_archive.html

The weather has grown quite cold now so we have stopped our water "trials" until spring.
I particularly like Miguel teaching him how to fetch

r.

[jai]

Falko and I will be in the water come this spring/summer. I had asked Wolfgang (the german man who has been training Falko for hunting), the best way to do this and he asked me if I had a bikini.. meaning I will be in the water. ::)Falko has been in the water, jumping through it and running across parts of it, in the shallow areas following Calli. Secretly I am hoping that Calli teaches him. I am not comfortable wearing a bikini LOL!
jai

[tasha]

jai I wore a rather fetching paid of green waders and at one point I am ashamed to say a pair of childrens blow up arm bands... believe me your swim wear I am sure will look much better

These are not good pictures taken on a friend mobile but you have to do what you have to do...



First we have a pep talk... see how nice the water is



Then we help out by getting in the water ourselves... bonnie is the blimp in the ripples... ;D



Now she likes the water for fun... especially if there is a crisp packet to retrieve...

One good trick I learnt was to use one of those retractable leads attached to a floating toy so that when the dog won't go into the water to retrieve it you can reel it back in but when the dog is swimming back with it you can quickly bring in the slack so that they don't get caught up in it, works a treat, before that I lost alot of floating dummies