Here’s everything I know about Labrador Retrievers:
- They love to eat.
- They love to retrieve.
- They love to swim.
I guess one out of three ain’t so bad. I have somehow been gifted with what appears to be the only retriever in the world who doesn’t like to fetch balls or play in the water.
When we first got G, it was winter, and there was a ton of snow on the ground. To give him exercise, we would try to play fetch with him in the basement where he could run around. The games never lasted for long, but at least he would play along. Once it got warmer out, I tried to play fetch with him outdoors, but he would rarely go chasing after the ball. There went my opportunity to engage with him directly for exercise.
The pool was still covered during spring, so we’d try to have G run a few laps around the pool “following” Aidan. “Following” is in quotes since G would overtake Aidan every time. But even that became short-lived. Aidan will take G dog out for walks in the neighborhood. But, other than that, the only other exercise G gets is his intense chases with Roscoe around the house. Floor rugs have been displaced in these pursuits, but, miraculously, nothing has been broken yet. And don’t think that this always entails the dog chasing the cat. On many occasions, it’s the cat chasing the dog. It’s all pretty comical, and the two wind up passing out from exhaustion afterward.
Once summer hit and we opened our pool, I had high hopes for getting G to do some swimming with me for some exercise. I bought him a life vest just to help him stay buoyant if he got too tired, and it was intended to be our “signal” to him that it was okay to get in the water. (We didn’t want him to just jump in whenever he felt like it.) The problem is, he’s terrified of the pool. Absolutely no amount of coercion would get him to voluntarily get in. We tried coaxing him with treats, yet my highly food-motivated boy was not having it. We tried using the leash to walk in with him, but he just dug his heels…er…paws into the concrete. My husband finally carried him in, but G just panicked and tried to climb up the side of the pool. So we just brought him over to the steps and let him get out.
As much as I’d love for him to get more exercise and for me to be part of that process, it’s not the end of the world if he doesn’t like swimming. Our vet even told us that if he ends up swimming often, he’ll be much more prone to ear infections. But I really need for him to get more comfortable in general around the pool. Whenever we’re in it, and someone goes underwater, you can see just how worried he gets. He’ll usually start panting and will run to the other side of the pool, waiting for them to come up. I hate seeing him stress about it and hope that the more he sees us in there without incident that he’ll start to relax a little more.
We rewatched an old episode of The Dog Whisperer where Cesar Milan worked with a dog who was afraid to get in a pool. The circumstances were a bit different—that dog was a little smaller and easier to carry than G, the top step of the pool was wider and deeper than ours so the dog could sit on it and get better acclimated before going all the way in, and other dogs were brought in to demonstrate that swimming was natural and nothing to be fearful of. But even with these dissimilarities, there were some other key takeaways from the show that we can try with G to see if we can’t turn him into a water lover yet. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.
The Pick-Up Artist 