June: Ildi tries to swim!

I wish I had a picture or video to go along with this post!
Ildi has only been near open water (that's not a rushing river) twice now. On her first time, she was with a fellow vizsla who loves to jump around in the water. Ildi eventually walked into the water (up to the top of her legs) and was splashing about - bopping the bubbles each leg lift would make!

Then on her second time near water - to a place we call Shangri-La (an off leash park in Canmore), she came into the company of a GSP and a Chocolate Lab - who were fetching and frolicking in the water. She loved trying to play with these guys so much that she would walk into the water here too - with lots of praise from us! Then out of nowhere she bounded in deeper and found herself not being able to touch - it took her a second to try and figure out how to get out of this predicament, but she did. She swam! though not the most efficient swimmer yet - you should have seen all the splashing! :) You could tell she still wasn't sure of the whole swimming thing yet as she was still only comfortable going in up to her legs. She did start dunking her entire head under though - I think she was trying to pick up rocks under the water. too funny - she looked like a duck with her head under water and her body above! But then, out of the blue - with no dogs to chase or toy to fetch she bounded into deeper water and tried swimming again!

needless to say, now that we have found a couple of safe swimming spots, we're going to give Ildi lots of opportunities to master swimming.