Was I ever surprised! - Page 1

My older female, Kalie, has always been lukewarm about water. Likes her bath, same with the kiddy pool, especially if it's hot out, but not overly enthusiastic. She & I had been out, toodling around in the car, running errands & doing property 'drive-by's, (looking from the curb at houses for sale to see if it's worth calling a realtor). After all morning & half the afternoon, I was beat, & I figured she would enjoy getting out of the car to stretch her legs. We have a lovely stream that runs through a wildlife area that was on our route, no dog restrictions, & benches, & tables....a good place to chill out for a few minutes. I put her long line on her, & away we went. She immediately went to the stream, which was running clear but swift, & a little deeper than usual; I figured she might wade in to her pasturns, maybe take a drink.....but instead, the wacko tippy-toed up to the edge, then in a flash, gathered herself up & took a flying leap right into the middle of the stream! She was swimming like crazy in a very swift current, thank goodness I had the line on her, I was able to steer her back to the bank pretty quickly. Scared the you-know-what out of me! I would never have expected her to do something like that! She was fine, shook herself off & came trotting back to me all sparkly eyed, very pleased with herself, but yikes! Not to mention how muddy her feet were, LOL, glad I keep an old beach towel in the trunk!

Anyone else had their good ol' predictable GSD shock the **** out of them lately? jackie harris

Aren't they clowns? My girl never went swimmimg before either, & the look on her face was priceless....."Must cross river!" Such determination! And where did she thnk she was going? I know now how dogs manage to travel great distances to old home sites, 'Lassie Come Home', & all that....they just dive in! I've always wanted to take the crew to the ocean, I think I might be a little worried about doing that now, unless we have that trusty line with us....she'd be off to visit Tigermouse! jh

Too funny!

Two summers ago Ike all of a sudden decided that he liked the hose!   Guess after watching Lexie for two summers with it, he decided that it looked pretty fun!  Granted he is not as nuts as she is though.

A couple weeks ago I did a fund raiser obedience thingy with them.  Now mind you, there was a kiddie pool in the ring and it was hot, so you can see where this is going!   At least we made it to the last exercise before Lexie dove in!   

Kathy

The first time I had the kiddie pool out for Kalie she would have none of it. She eventually got used to the idea, & that's why, I guess, I was so shocked on Sunday, she never showed more than a passing interest in water, but I know better now! Hey, Rezkat, how've you been? It's been a while! jh

I'm good!  Avery is doing well, goes out to training with mom and was out at the AWDF championships last weekend with me.

We just had our club trial this past weekend so she stayed home with her daddy as I was trial secretary and was kept busy.     We are going herding this afternoon.

Kathy

Two of mine are water dogs, can't keep them out of it.
The suprise was over winter taking them to our favorite place in the car instead of the truck and having them jump into the flooded river mud and all.
They rode home in the trunk.

My rescue, Ranger, was tossed off the deep end of the dock by his idiot owner as a small pup. Needless to say, when I got him, he was terrified of water.

I started working to overcome his fear by taking him out a short distance into the water, then letting him go back to shore after just a short time, and giving him lots of praise.

Finally, I took him out far enough that he had to swim. He thrashed the water with his paws in a panic. I only kept him swimming for about 20 or 30 seconds, then let him go back to shore, and praised him up.

I decided that was enough, let him off the leash, waded back out into the water and began to swim myself, going parallel to the shore. Well, Ranger had a fit. He ran up and down the shore, whining. Finally, he jumped into the water, and SWAM OUT TO ME!!  This time, he had the swimming thing down pat, and was doing a proper dog paddle, instead of frantically churning the water.

I guess he thought I was going to drown, or something! I praised him to the skies, and swam back into shore with him.

He's not a keen swimmer by any means, but he now loves to frolic in the shallows with Star, and chase balls and sticks. He'll even dunk his entire head underwater to retrive balls or frisbees from the bottom! He will swim short distances if he has to, but is always glad to get his feet back on the bottom.