Cooper's First Swimming Experience

A fun story to tell about Cooper is of when he went swimming for the first time.  I know dogs can swim.  It's natural for them to dog-paddle no matter how young they are.  Cooper was about nine months old I guess, on this particular day when we went to visit Pat and Val who have an in-ground pool. They live a couple towns away from us, and didn't mind Cooper swimming in their pool.  Cooper has a life jacket we use for sailing.  I wanted to see how well he could swim with it on.  I never expected for it to be helpful in his ability to swim over all.  

No, it's not that the life jacket is so good... it's that Cooper was such a bad swimmer!  Oh, he can swim.  But dog-paddling when he's excited or nervous, causes him to swim hard with big out of the water strokes.  This creates an incredible amount of splashing right into his face so he can't breathe... causing panic...  big problem.

At Pat and Val's pool a few years ago.
This is the pool Cooper learned to swim in.

I had to teach him to relax in the water.  Swimming like this would surely exhaust him.  If this were a real situation, he could be in big trouble before he could get to shore.  

I put his life jacket on him and brought him back into the water.  As I lowered him in, he started to tense up a lot and paddle like crazy before he even got low enough in the water to swim.  I tried to hold him still and talk to him, but it wasn't working.  I then just lowered into the water with him, held his front legs still and didn't let him paddle at all.  He was so tense!  I was surprised because he loves the water.  He plays in it when ever he can.

I held him in the water by his front legs, allowing the rest of his body to be held by the life jacket.  I encouraged him to relax.  I objected to his fearful struggling.  Finally I felt his body relax and allow the life jacket to hold his body weight, while I still had his front legs.  He finally started breathing normally.  I held him a while longer and talked to him to make sure he was comfortable and settled in the water.  When he seemed fine and natural in his movements I let him swim.  MUCH BETTER.  He was now swimming with normal paddles.  Under the water strokes that don't splash him in the face.  

He was swimming well at that point.  He turned some circles and went to the stairs of the pool to get out.  He would run in excitement and bark into the pool at us.  He wanted to get back in, but wasn't sure how he wanted to do that.  He didn't want me to bring him back in.  As much as my holding him helped him swim better, he didn't want to go that route again.  Dogs hate to be restrained.   I took the life jacket off and let him go at his own pace.  Before too long he was back on the steps of the pool playing happily with a leaf that was floating in the shallow water.  He was calm and happy.  I allowed him to do what he wanted.  

Berta's pool last summer

He was very happy to stay at the pool for the day.  I took him in a few more times but didn't work as much with him as I should have.  The next time he went swimming he was back to the panicked swimming again.  

He still enjoys the water very much, so I think I would like to use this summer to help him to be more comfortable in the water than he has ever been before.  Rest assured,  there will be stories.

Checking out his next H2O adventure