I think it's time to teach Olive basic skills of water training. She swam several times so far since I got her last Sep. Now I know she can at least swim and swims for fun.
Today I took her and Louie, my 9 year old veteran swimmer who obtained WRDX a few years ago (WRDX is the highest level of NCA Water Work), to swim. I put her on a lifejacket since my friends and I noticed dogs who started with lifejackets seem to learn "leveled" swimming. There are two kinds of swimmers. One who swims leveled to surface (hindend floats) and the other who swim unleveled (hindend under water). I want my dogs to swim leveled because it is more efficient and energy saving. And I know it will help her to do "Capsized boat rescue" in WRDX in the future. Both Louie and Maya (who also has WRDX) are not leveled swimmer. The Capsized boat rescue was the most challenging exercise for them. Today Olive kept swimming and swimming endlessly to retrieve her bumper. I'm sure the lifejacket saved her energy, so she could keep going.
I was watching her carefully. I wanted to know what she naturally does in water. She seems to be ok to dunk her face into water (which is advantage for Underwater Retrieve in the senior level test). She comes out to me without hesitation, but kept turning left in front of me ("left" from her point of view), so did not go around me before turning back to shore. I need to start making her go around me EVERYTIME since I want to make sure she gets to a drowning victim who needs to be able to touch and grab her in order to be rescued. She also tried jumping off a dock today. Not a natural jumper. But I'm sure she will do it if I can make it fun. First time I ran with her and she jumped in with me. But she also realized it's a little bit scary (she dunked her head completely). Since she doesn't mind to wet her face, I'm sure she will get over it and learn not to sink herself completely (she's been putting her muzzle into a water bucket in our house...that's her own play). I think I don't worry about her water skills, but today's biggest finding was she LOVES to munch grass while she is on beach. I need to be clear that is not acceptable from now since I don't want her to keep munching whatever on beach and not to work (play with me in water). I want her to think playing in water is much more fun than staying on beach.
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Kiko- I agree. So important for them to have fun while training at the same time. I made so many mistakes with Scarlet when starting out at the beginning. Even simple things like the endless fetching of the thrown bumper. I did not teach her patience on the beach and it has been so difficult to get her to wait for the judges command with the other exercises. I look forward to reading about your progress with Olive. You are a master teacher and so willing to share your knowledge with others. This makes you a wonderful person indeed!
Thank you, Mary ! I enjoy teaching people, but it's hard to explain, especially in a foreign language, LOL.
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