This is partly an experiment in getting video into this blog. Hope it works. This video is from three weeks ago when Callie, on a long leash, made her first attempts to swim. There are two parts to the video. In the first part you see the native intelligence of a Golden Retriever at work. Callie grabs the rope attached to her fetch toy and just pulls the toy ashore. But in the second half of the clip, Callie actually takes a few little dog paddles before getting back to the beach.
You can see Callie being a little afraid of the waves and afraid of getting into water “over her head.” Actually, this is a reason we wanted to work with Callie when she takes her first few puppy paddles. We know of a few dogs that had bad experiences learning to swim and decided never to swim again. We don’t want this to happen to Callie.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKIL0V1ExnE]
Yesterday, we headed down to Callie’s beach at Lake Arrowhead. Near our boat dock, we met Jack, a six-year-old boxer, and Maverick a six-month-old yellow lab. Maverick was a lot bigger than Callie, even though they are about the same age. We are expecting Callie to be on the small side for Golden Retrievers. Her mom weighs about 55 pounds, but her dad is large. We’re giving Callie a totally loose leash when she visits other dogs, so she can work things out in her own doggie way. So far, it’s working. With Jack, the boxer, Callie was totally submissive. She just flattened herself on the ground in front of Jack. With Maverick, she acted more like an equal.
The toy you see in the video above is an “indestructible” piece of firehose with a little fabric loop for a leash, so you can throw the toy into the water & retrieve it. Well, in the intervening two weeks, Callie has managed to destruct the indestructible. She didn’t damage the firehose part, but she chewed through the fabric loop, so we can’t attach a leash to it.
We tried tossing the blue toy without a leash, but the water was too deep for Callie. Besides, the blue toy kept floating farther from the shoreline. So we decided to teach Callie to swim the old fashioned way — with a stick. I grabbed a small pine stick and tossed it into water that was just deep enough that Callie would not be able to walk to it. She stopped walking when the water got up to her nose, and she obviously wanted to retrieve the stick. She dug deep inside for a little courage and pushed off the bottom toward the stick. This first time, her head went under water for just a second, but she got the stick and took a few paddles back to land.
That was all it took. The next three or four times, Callie took a few paddles to get to the stick, grabbed it, and paddled back to shore — definitely swimming. She is still a little hesitant before taking the plunge. She stops for a second and then screws up her courage to jump in, but now she does it every time.
I didn’t have the video-cam yesterday, but I’ll get some shots of Callie now that she’s an expert swimmer.
Also, it will take a little editing, but now that I know how to do video, I’ll put together some clips of Callie playing soccer.
