Taught our dog to jump off the diving board

allisonandrews · 06-19-2006, 03:55 PM

We taught our lab to jump off the diving board at the dock at my in-laws house. He's not the most graceful about it, but we are proud of him. We have a life jacket for him next time because once he gets going, he will not stop going off the board!

Click on to play a short video.

Rich Decker · 06-19-2006, 04:02 PM

I loved watching the dogs jump off the dock on the Outdoor Games. My dog, a Shar-pei won't go near the water, hose, bathroom, puddle or any other collection of water and I have a pond in my front yard.

allisonandrews · 06-19-2006, 04:07 PM

Yes, that is what we are trying to teach Bailey to do. Last year we just worked on him fetching a stick in the lake. Actually, there was no work to it. He swam circles around the boxer when he was just a few months old.

He's a bit bigger now at 1 1/2 years old.

It only took us about an hour to get him to jump off the dock and then to move to jumping off the diving board. He would drag his ankles at first, but he eventually learned that if he jumped, it didn't hurt.

allisonandrews · 06-19-2006, 04:10 PM

This is about as far as the boxer likes to go in the lake.

Bailey will swim as far as you can throw the stick.

Maddox can swim, he is just not graceful. His rear end tends to sink and he just struggles. He does love to be wet though. We have them a large kiddie pool in the yard, to cool off, Maddox gets in and then crouches down to wet his chest. He is just very careful not to get his manly parts in the water - I guess a bit too cold on them!

wittdog · 06-19-2006, 08:48 PM

We have a lot of fun watching magic swim. You'll never be able to get Bailey out of the water now.

The first time magic went swimming we thought we got the one lab that couldn't swim...Now he loves it.

Wittdogs B · 06-19-2006, 10:14 PM

"The first time magic went swimming we thought we got the one lab that couldn't swim"

Yeah, I had him at a friend's house by her pond as a puppy. he was walking on the dock and stepped right off the end! sank like a stone--was just about go jump in after him when he came up. A bit of a traumatic start but he got right over it. Gotta love those labs!