The wife and I took our black lab(Zero) to the marina this morning. We took his tennis ball and a long leash. He is 18 months old but has never been around water. We'd throw the ball about 20 feet into the water and he'd go toward it, but when he couldn't toch the bottom he would turn around and come back. He would look at it and seem to say "I can't get that, the water is over my head". We had a good laugh. We are going to keep working with him. He's such a BOOB but so darn lovable.

My dog's first experience was similar, he got to the edge of where he could touch and just looked at the ball. So I waded out and gave him a little shove. He came back with a look on his face that said "why in the heck would you do something like that?" Same happened thing on the second throw and again I gave him a little shove, but after that it was game on! He was about a year old at that time.

This is much easier to fix if you have a buddy whose dog will swim it can be used to make yours jealous by making yours stay on shore while you play fetch with the other dog & make a big fuss over each fetch soon you won't be able to keep yours out of the water, I've always tried to train a pup at the feet of an older experienced dog & it works really well no force needs to be used & pup stays happy & eager to please.

don't know if this will help, but my folks have 2 female labs. they have one of those little plastic pools in the backyard for the dogs, so they've always had water they could get in. when i first took them down to the neighborhood pond and released them, they just ran straight in the water and started swimming. the problem was getting them out of the pond to take them back home. maybe a little water play at home will help?

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This is much easier to fix if you have a buddy whose dog will swim it can be used to make yours jealous by making yours stay on shore while you play fetch with the other dog & make a big fuss over each fetch soon you won't be able to keep yours out of the water, I've always tried to train a pup at the feet of an older experienced dog & it works really well no force needs to be used & pup stays happy & eager to please.

This is a good recomendation. Make sure the dogs get along well a dogfight in deep water is nasty.

I always started my pups swimming very early by wading in deep enough that they had to swim to follow me or wading across something they would have to swim to get to me.

They will all pick it up though especially if not traumatized while learning.

I introduced my 4 month old black lab (Raven) to my pond about two weeks ago. She did not like it at all. I then started working my 9 year old chocolate lab (Choco) in the pond. After observing Choco in the pond, Raven caught on quickly and now enjoys the water, maybe even a little too much.

Hey guys,

Thanks for the replies.We are gonig to get him a w kids wading pool to keep him cool this summer. The temps have been well over 90 degrees here in northern Nevada the last couple of days and Zero is hating it. The best we can do for now is the tennis ball in the sprinkler bit for now. We'll get him swimming yet. He's such a lovable BOOB.

Thanks,
Tony