- Location
- Herefordshire, UK
So now that we have Grade 2 under our belt, we will be working towards Grdae 3 and for this Cassie needs to do a water retrieve.
The thing is, Cassie doesn't swim, unless in the company of a Forum dog or dogs, Rourke @Jelinga it was who finally lured in her to the River Avon last year.
She loves to go in up to belly or shoulders, when hot and/or thirsty and needs to cool off, and still enjoys running up and down playing in a fast running stream in a sort of aquatic zoomie session. But on her own she doesn't swim, and even when she goes in with other dogs I can see her being very tentative about the bit where her feet no longer touch the bottom of the pool or river or whatever.
It may be because at around 4-5 months she fell in, as she tried to walk on water that was covered in leaves, and is a good 3 ft deep underneath. I don't whether it frightened her or not.
So we have some work to do on this, we did a water training day a few weeks ago, during which she bravely went in a short distance for her dummy. Last night, my daughter and I took Cassie down to the lake, with her (my daughter) clad in waders and myself in waterproofs, and played with her in the outlet where there is a nice funnel shaped basin that we can wade out in and where Cassie can swim close by.
It went quite well, and she enjoyed it, she loves it when someone else comes on a walk and gets involved, and we stopped after she had twice swam a few strokes to get her dummy.
Does anyone else have any ideas or experience to add?
The thing is, Cassie doesn't swim, unless in the company of a Forum dog or dogs, Rourke @Jelinga it was who finally lured in her to the River Avon last year.
She loves to go in up to belly or shoulders, when hot and/or thirsty and needs to cool off, and still enjoys running up and down playing in a fast running stream in a sort of aquatic zoomie session. But on her own she doesn't swim, and even when she goes in with other dogs I can see her being very tentative about the bit where her feet no longer touch the bottom of the pool or river or whatever.
It may be because at around 4-5 months she fell in, as she tried to walk on water that was covered in leaves, and is a good 3 ft deep underneath. I don't whether it frightened her or not.
So we have some work to do on this, we did a water training day a few weeks ago, during which she bravely went in a short distance for her dummy. Last night, my daughter and I took Cassie down to the lake, with her (my daughter) clad in waders and myself in waterproofs, and played with her in the outlet where there is a nice funnel shaped basin that we can wade out in and where Cassie can swim close by.
It went quite well, and she enjoyed it, she loves it when someone else comes on a walk and gets involved, and we stopped after she had twice swam a few strokes to get her dummy.
Does anyone else have any ideas or experience to add?
. I could almost see her thinking when she launched off, "ok, I can do this!" 
