Ever Have A Dog That Can't Swim?

[jonp]

My Valley Bulldog is a sweetheart but i've now had to save her for a third time. Once when I was rowing across a pond she jumped in and tried to follow. I reversed course and dragged her into the boat as she was flailing away maddly. The second time she somehow managed to get on the far side of a boulder and got trapped. I had to launch a canoe to get her. Yesterday we were walking beside a river and she decided to get a drink then fell in. I had to jump in and hoist her out and since she is 80lbs it was not as easy as it was 10yrs ago. Boy, April river water is still kinda chilly! Good thing that doesn't bother me having grown up way north.

[GhostHawk]

I dropped my little pup in the river once, leash attached, He went around in circles twice, then gave me a dirty look as he paddled 3 feet to shore and crawled out.

Now hot water from the shower with a scrubdown of Johnson's baby shampoo and a rinse then a towel dry scrub from dad with lots of sweet talking and face licking. He likes that. River water, not so much, for sure not if it is cold. He's spoiled rotten, but who else do I have to spoil?

[Survival Bill]

!!!!!

[dverna]

Never seen a dog that cannot swim.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

You might consider a dog life jacket when near water. Seriously. They don't cost much.

I had a Springer that swam 18 miles down a river one day. She refused to stay in the canoe and insisting on swimming along side. I was worried she would wear out and drown, but she made it . I would have put a life jacket on her if they made them back then but they didn't.

[Stewbaby]

French bulldogs notorious for this...too front heavy

[Parson]

I don't know if mine can't or won't, will go in the water, retrieve as long as at least her back feet are on the bottom. I can lift her hind end up, take her to deeper water and let her go. She will thrash until she gets close enough to shore that her hind feet touch bottom and then walk to shore. I can throw the dummy back out and she will go right out after it but will not swim. She is 3/4 Poodle and a 1/4 Lab, fantastic pheasant dog but no ducks

[shortfal]

My PitLab mix can swim well but apparently does not like to. If I put her in deep water she'll swim directly to the shore every time. But she will run up and down the bank in water about up to her belly chomping at the splashes as long as I let her.
Pete

[dagger dog]

French bulldogs notorious for this...too front heavy

My first Boston terrier was like that, very chunky and top heavy, she would jump out of the canoe and swim straight to the bottom. I got her a jacket, she would ride on my kayak sitting on the back deck, jump off and swim over to the wife's boat, had to walk her around any big rapids and tie her up to keep her safe while we ran the rapid.

[salpal48]

I have 2 dogs that can't swim. 'Bassett Hounds" legs too short body too heavy and short . will sink like a rock

[tygar]

TYGAR & his son & grand kids. GSDs can retrieve in water or land just like any retriever, but can't do the real cold water since then don't have the oily skin like labs. We can't keep ours out of the water.

That said, I have had a few that can swim, but don't like it, & will bale as soon as possible.

The one swimming at bottom of pool pic is preparing to dive down several feet to attack the light on the side.

[runfiverun]

yeah seen a number of dog's that can't or won't swim.
BIL had a Staffordshire terrier that was pretty good at walking on the bottom of the lakes around here.

[54bore]

Never seen a dog that cannot swim.

Me either? Thought that was born right in them?

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I think nearly all dogs can swim in an emergency. It is so much like trotting, or indeed dreaming. But of seven dogs we have had, only the cairn terrier would swim. I suppose when you have legs six inches long, you don't have much of a choice. Lanty Hanlon the Irish terrier is the only one that even dislikes wading or getting his feet muddy, but then, he was a puppy in dead of winter. That's his story and he's sticking to it. I've seen him with water a third of the way up his fuselage in summer, when kids enticed him in, but that's his limit.

My old pacifist collie, bought for thirty shillings in a Glasgow petshop, was surely the most obedient dog I ever had, although I've known some as crafty. The cairn despised her when she wasted good legs by trying to get rabbits to play with her. She would obey invisible hand signals fifty yards off, and glared at me indignantly for a whole second first if I gave visible ones, for that was calling her an animal. But she got quite panicky when her cairn friend swam, for she thought she was amputated at the waterline. Once I took her along the shore, where she was used to getting permission to leap down from a concrete ledge onto the beach. I saw her looking over the edge, and thinking about something else, I gave her the signal. I was amazed when she hesitated a moment before jumping. I hadn't noticed, on a glass-calm day, that the tide was in. So she jumped into four feet of water without ever having swum a stroke in her life. I never knew if she could have done, because there wasn't time before I grabbed her collar and heaved her out. But she was full of herself all the way home, doubtless thinking like the dying Nelson "Thank God I have done my duty."

[farmerjim]

Even my neighbors 3 legged lab can swim and retrieve ducks.

[buckwheatpaul]

We are mainly a schnauzer family and in a total of 7 of them....two would drown....could not swim....

[bedbugbilly]

Somr dogs are made for swimming . . . some aren't . . . no different than people. Even a dog that can swim can get in trouble in water . . . same as a person who can swim . . . . and I was involved in "recovery" operations of more than one person who was described as "a good swimmer". If you love your pet . . . if you love your children . . . . if you love your spouse and friends . . . . a life jacket is cheap insurance.

[Morgan61]

I have a Beagle/Basset mix that can't swim, she'll sink like a rock.
My lab has always loved water but would not swim until she was about 4 yrs. old. I finally got her to swim by wading out with her as far as as she would go, then I would go just a little deeper and encourage her to follow me. Once she learned that the sensation of buoyancy was nothing to fear the rest was easy.
Now she'll spend hours swimming out to fetch sticks I throw in the lake.

[WILCO]

Had a dog that I thought couldn't swim once. He eventually came up kicking like the S.O.B. he really was.

[brass410]

I've had two that could not swim 1 was a huge rottwieler 140 lbs of muscle and tongue and the other and English mastiff 180 lbs plus she was all nose and tail