Hi, this is me, Callie, Golden Retriever, learning to swim last summer. Like some other dogs, I needed a little help to learn how to swim. Wait til you see the improvement I’ve made this year. I’ve learned to dive into Lake Arrowhead all by myself to retrieve my Floppy Disc. Fred doesn’t have any good pictures yet, because he’s been working hard to teach me how to dive off the boat dock. But there will be really good ones; I promise.

So let me tell you how Fred & Barbara taught me to dive.

It was a little like learning to swim in the first place. I just love the water. But I was a little scared at first to start swimming. So Fred and Barbara helped me work my way into it gradually. They took me to a place where the beach is very gentle, and Fred kept tossing a pine stick a little farther out each time, so I had to wade into deeper water to retrieve it.

The first few times he threw the stick into water that was too deep for me to wade to the stick, I kinda freaked out and ran back to shore. But finally, I got up the courage to take a few dog-paddles, and the rest is history.

Fred and Barbara still have me working on a 30′ lead, because there’s some boat traffic around their dock, and they don’t want me to swim to far out into the lake. But that’s OK. I’ll show them that I can be trusted by “coming” when I’m called.

We worked our way up to diving, just like I had to get comfortable in deeper and deeper water.

Actually, the jumping part is easy for me. I love to jump. After all, my mom and dad are agility champions. On my morning jog, I jump up on some pretty high rocks and benches. And it’s just as much fun to jump down as it is to jump up — maybe more!

But it felt different when I had to jump into water instead of onto the ground. When I got on the stone stairs near the boat dock, I was about two feet above the water, and I was too scared to jump in from that high. So Fred took me down two steps lower, and we practiced from there. That was a piece of cake. Fred threw my Floppy Disc out a few feet into the water, and off I went.

Then we went up a step, and that was a little scarier. Fred had to give me a little nudge, but I didn’t mind. He knew I’d be fine once I got in the water.

The next to last step was to go back up to the top of the stone steps. I was scared at first, so Fred gave me a little nudge and from then on it was easy. I did about three really great jumps off the stone steps.

Then we went out to the end of the boat dock, which is scarier, because the dock is bouncing around in the waves. I was pretty scared, and Fred didn’t want to push me in and have me be even more scared. So he took me back to the stone steps for a little more practice. I think that was a good idea, because it helped me build up my confidence.

When we went back to the end of the boat dock, I was still pretty scared, but this time Barbara gave a little tug on my lead, and into the water I went. It was great! It felt just like jumping in off the stone steps. I was so anxious to do it again, after I swam ashore, that I practically pulled Fred into the water behind me.

We got to the end of the dock, and in I went, all by myself! No pushing. No tugging. Just Callie from about three feet above the water — as graceful a swan dive as a Golden Retriever can possibly make.

Now maybe Fred can relax a little and get some good pictures for another blog.

Bye for now,

Callie, Golden Retriever

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.