- This topic has 16 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by
.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope!
-
So, Athena HATES water. Which I find interesting, for a hunting breed. She’ll (barely) tolerate bathing. I’ve tried luring her in with treats, but that just gets her to tippy-toe around, and she won’t stay in a second longer than strictly necessary. Does anyone have any helpful suggestions, besides throwing her in? (Which will probably end up with me having my larynx ripped out)
Forever Weimanamanama
I would try a water retrieval dummy toy. The floating orange stick or there is a duck shaped sling-shot by Hyper Pet. Sticks might not be enough of an interest. Also the more the merrier as per usual. Bring your trunks haha.
Jaeger HATES the water too. Have you tried going down to a lake/river and walking in slowly with a toy/treats you know she can’t resist? This is what I did when Jaeger was a puppy and he warmed up to the water pretty quickly. It took about 15mins until he was comfortable enough to run in on his own to fetch a stick. Too bad I didn’t keep up with this because 2 years later, its like he doesn’t remember that water is fun! We tried getting him in the pool last summer and it only ended up with me getting sucker punched by his paws, which in turn got stuck in my swim suit top…well, I leave it to you to put the embarrassing conclusion together. :/
-Steph & Jaeger
That’s how far she’ll go. And she was -highly- motivated to catch the dragon flies.
He’s fine with snow up to her neck though, and that’s much colder. Weird dogs.
Forever Weimanamanama
We tried the running in and out of the lake (on leash) with. Treats and lots of motivation. Still she was not impressed!
Weimanamanama Weimaranermama
Guess it’s not for all dogs….oh well 🙂 I’m fine with my dry, cuddly pup. HAHA!
-Steph & Jaeger
Agreed. It saves me from that old water/rotting fish smell…
Weimanamanama Weimaranermama
Oskar hates any body of water he can’t walk into slowly…ie. he’d rather try and slide off a dock than jump in, and he won’t get in the bath tub if it’s already full. Don’t get me wrong, he loves creek water that he can run around in, but there’s something about him not knowing where the bottom is or how deep the water is that scares him.
We try to encourage him to swim though in deeper water and so when we take him to the beach with us, we keep him on his easy walk harness, no leash, and walk in with him and encourage him to swim with us. He’ll swim right out and around us then swim back to shore. Although he doesn’t suffer severe separation anxiety, he does get anxious when he can’t see us or know we’re near. We hope that by us being with him in deeper water, he’ll become more apt to just dive in. Maybe Athena would feel more comfortable if she knew her family was there with her and let you show her the water is fun and not something to be associated with bath time!
I’m certainly going to put in a bit more effort this summer to get her to swim. It tires them out so much quicker than just hiking for an hour or two.
We tried getting her to swim on the beach. nope. nope. nope. nope. Odin wouldn’t have any of that wither.
Forever Weimanamanama
We just had Odin a few months when we tried to get him into the water, he is a more secure dog now then he was then.
Athena will actually stop going deeper when she has to swim instead of walk in the water. When she was very little she did a little swimming in a pool with me. I of course got punched in the face by her paw because she wanted to get out as quick as possible.
@Olivia I had no idea Oskar didn’t like swimming too much either!
Weimanamanama Weimaranermama
Jade was not a swimmer for her first two years either. She would wade in the water but never get to the point where she would actually swim. I also tried the treats, cajoling, etc., but she was not having it. I figured I would let her prey drive take over and zip tied a freeze dried pheasant wing to a retrieval bumper. I let her play with it for a little bit and the shallow water than gradually started throwing it farther and farther out. Within a half hour she was swimming really far out and loving it. By the end of the day she was jumping off the end of the dock for it. Shes been a water dog ever since!
I know what to do if I ever hit a wild turkey!
But seriously…. that might work with Athena too. She has a huge prey drive.
Weimanamanama Weimaranermama
So does Jade! And if one goes, the other usually follows. Our other dog Sophie wasn’t a huge water lover either, but once Jade started swimming she didn’t want to miss any of the action. Give it a try!
Hunter hated the water. But after a four hour session of Cheetos and pure dedication on my part, he’s now a very happy swimmer 🙂 lots and lots of patience and good high pitch positive reinforcement worked with hunter. Eventually throwing in the Cheetos further and further into the water until his butt lifted for take off and he wasn’t afraid anymore of the ‘unknown’…
good luck!
where abouts are you in toronto?
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
