Making swimming fun for puppies is important for continued success in the water. Even know I have water dogs it doesn’t mean they can’t become afraid of the water and need to learn that water is safe and a fun place to be. You need to expose your puppy to situations that you would like them to be comfortable with when they are young. If exposed young to a pleasant experience in the future they shouldn’t have any aversions to it if accumulated properly.

Preacher was exposed to a kiddy pool when she was 6 weeks old, she went in it when she wanted to and she drank from it standing on the outside of it. When she was 7 weeks old I took her and the other puppies to a sandy beach along with Glory to run around and go into the water when they wanted to. Some of the puppies went right in and swam on their own others just got their feet wet.

You don’t want to force any puppy into the water, you want them to do it on their own and encourage them to do it. If you force them you can cause them to become scared, at this age the fear imprint stage of their development is happening so anything that they fear and become scared of stays with them for life. It is much easier to prevent this then to desensitize it when they are older.

I did hold the puppies and set them in the water and held onto them while in the water, I praised them when they took off swimming and encouraged them. You don’t want to just “throw” them into the water, they don’t understand what water is or what they are to be doing so no need to scare them.

I didn’t want to much time to pass between swimming lessons so when Preacher was 9.5 weeks old we made our first trip to Pardeeville lake to get used to the water and do a little swimming again.

When we got to the lake I only got Preacher out of the truck and let her run around. I went into the lake and she followed me in. The water was up to her belly, she would walk around in the water and then she just started swimming. I was very happy with her swimming, she did great, wasn’t scared, wasn’t slapping her feet and splashing all over, swimming like a fish she was.

I tossed a bumper around on land for her also to have some fun with that.

I then got Glory and Nellie out and had them go in the water with her so she could see it wasn’t bad and fun to be in the water.

We will be going back as often as we can so she gets more comfortable with it.

Here is a video I took of her on the boat landing when Glory was out, I think Glory was too excited for Preacher so she just stayed on the landing and didn’t go in the water much.

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