I've been camping the past 2 weekends.......I have pics....I'll post later if I feel like it and you all are not sick of a certain red husky.

Anyway, the first trip I went through all the effort of putting a life jacket on him but I didn't want to get in the water much so I didn't really see about him swimming.

I forgot the life jacket this time, but I decided to take him out into the pond and see what happened.

I took it very slowly...tossed some sticks into the water and had him fetch them..he loves water, he has a small pool at home which he plays in all the time. He'd willingly run and splash into the lake, and enjoyed himself very much. Then I went into the water with him with a stick and he'd follow me, me praising him of course.

He would go right up to his belly but if he went one step farther and he couldn't quite touch..........He'd start whining then latch onto me (literally, I had a husky with his paws on my shoulders...) for dear life.

I was right there with him the whole time.....he seemed to think that he couldn't swim....I tried to convince him he could, but he wouldn't have anything of it.

So I gave up and just tossed sticks into the shallow water and let him and Reggie fight over who got it first. Lady LOVES to swim, and I think maybe if we had her he'd go in and play with her.

Not that it really matters if he swims or not....just wondering if anyone had a dog that was afraid to swim at first, and they taught them to enjoy it.