Canine Water Sports, Part 2 by Pamela Dennison
May
not be reprinted without written approval.
Part 1, Part
2, Part
3 & 4, Part
5, Photos
August 12, 2006
Second private with Deborah Lee today. I wasn’t all that sure
how my dogs would do today. Here at home, their progress has been
somewhat limited and sporadic. I kept persevering and boy, am I glad
I did! They were all incredibly fantastic today!
Deborah Lee set up a table about 30 feet from shore (that
was underwater a few inches) so they could learn to stand
on it and rest if they needed to. Attached to the table
was a floating ball that all of my dogs were very interested
in.
Beau got to go first today. He is my most timid dog and
although he enjoys swimming, he is not the best swimmer
of the bunch. I started out with the same warm up exercise
and then worked on his (non-existent) stay on shore….
I finally got him to do a stay on shore and then called
him to me. He did his “help” behavior and then
I swam with him over to the table. After a few tries, he
figured out how to get onto it. I gave him the toy and with
no hesitation whatsoever, he promptly leaped off of the
table! We repeated that a few times and I started to mix
in “help” and “table.” He also started
to bring me the toy while I was still in the water – a
huge breakthrough for him. He was totally confident and
I was utterly thrilled!
Emma came next and she actually did a stay on shore while
I walked into the water a few feet. I am still having to
lure her a bit to do her “help” behavior. I
will have to go back to working with this on land a bit
more. Emma loved the table, got on with no hesitation and
jumped off with no hesitation! She was even able to willingly
jump off of the table away from shore. We did a lot more
swimming together than we had been doing and used the table
so she could rest in between. I am torn between building
up their stamina and making sure I don’t stress them
or cause an injury. She did not want to stop swimming! She
rarely went to shore, retrieved the toy back to me in the
water many times.
Shadow was very afraid of the table and I had to physically
help him the first time he got on it. The first time he
came off of it okay, however, the second time he was too
afraid. After trying to get the floating ball in his mouth
a few times…<g>, he ended up tipping the table
over so he could just swim off of it. I didn’t push
him with it, so we just swam around a little bit. My goodness!
He swims so fast, I can hardly keep up with him! I did a
few “bring the toy back to me in the water” retrieves
and he did really well! This is a big deal for him – letting
go of the toy, so I was very impressed. I ended his session
much sooner because he hurt himself last week and I didn’t
want to push him.
All in all it was a super session with all of the dogs.
The progress they made today was amazing. Before this, none
of them would bring the toy to me in the water and Beau
and Emma swam for a much longer time than they normally
do AND IT WAS THEIR CHOICE! Wahoo!
I encourage all of you to check out this new and exciting
dog sport! For more information, go to www.caninewatersports.com.
