The weather was not great this year, the lake temperature registered almost 4 degrees colder than last year and it was windy the entire time, so the lake was very choppy and wavey, not great for swimming. Thursday morning was the ONLY time the lake was calm and clear, I did get in around 9:30 for my morning bath, but it was so damn cold that I was unable to dunk my head. Just using my hands to splash the water over my head to dampen and wash it, made it sting real bad it was so cold. Fri morning Tammy and I went in the lake and it again was too cold to dunk. After 2 days of being chilled all day from the morning swim, I opted to not go in again on Sat or Sun morning. I think the daytime temps felt like the high 60's, very low 70's due to all the wind.
We did get down to the lake on one of the nights to watch the sunset. Crystal, JoJo, Derek, Cooper, Rick, Marley, Shelbie, Kristen, Barney, Kiki & Randy!
Here's the best shots I got of Derek & Cooper hangin out watchin the sunset.. well Cooper was not watching the sun, all he cared about were the waves crashing on the shore and that he wanted to jump in!!
Ahh.. a moment of relief where Cooper actually sat still... but notice he is still intently focused on the water! 
Since we knew we had water issues with Cooper, we wanted that weekend to focus on getting him in the water. On our walk on Thursday morning, he seemed interested in walking by the water and he even waded in it just a little. The wind had not kicked in yet, so it was smooth and calm. A couple hours later when we returned to the water, he immediately wanted to go in and really seemed to enjoy being in the water. By the 3rd trip to the water that day, he started to get very excited the closer to the water we got and was pulling very hard to get in and he went straight to playing! He was jumping and splashing and paddling at the top of the water, trying to catch his own splash with his mouth.. he was being so damn cute, he drew the attention of many on the beach with some telling us he was the funniest dog they'd ever seen in water!
The 4th trip to the water that day, he again went crazy playing around and did NOT want to come out.. but I started to realize he was only going out as far as he could touch with his back legs. A couple times he got swallowed up by a wave and was rolled completely over under water. Didnt seem to faze him one bit. He was using his back legs to jump up and out of the water, it really was hilarious! We talked a bit that day and could not figure out why the trainer struggled when clearly we had a dog that LOVES the water!
The next day we took Cooper over to the dock before allowing him to play in the water. I wanted to know 1) if he would jump off the dock and 2) if he could actually swim. Well with a little encouragement, Cooper jumped off that dock!! YEAH!!!! and he immediately went vertical in the water, reaching for the bottom with his back legs and started to really struggle with the potential for drowing, so I got over to him, put my hand under his belly and helped him get to shore. DAMN my suspisions were correct, we had a dog that did not know how to swim. After that, Cooper was not willing to jump off the dock and we concluded that the reason Butch (the trainer) struggled is because Cooper was not confident in the water so he just would not jump in for Butch. I spent the next 20 minutes in the water with Cooper and helping him learn to swim, felt like the only thing I accomplished was getting wet and full of scratches on my arms and legs from him flay-ling around in the water.
I was dissappointed, a bit upset and also frustrated. We immediately quit allowing Cooper to go in the water because we knew he needed to learn to swim and letting him play was not going to accomplish that. We'll let him play once he learns to swim. The good thing was that we clearly had a better understanding of our dog and what needed to happen to move forward, although we were unsure how to accomplish that.
When we returned home, a few days later we took Cooper to a local lake and I again went in the water with him to help teach him to swim. We put a training bumper in his mouth so he would not try to bite at the splash, that did help, but he still was flay-ling his front legs all about, trying to splash the water instead of having them under water to swim. He did a tiny bit of actual swimming after 20 minutes of working with him but then he would go back to vertical and drowning! When we got out of the lake, I was covered in really fine lake bottom dirt, it was rather gross.. so when I got home, I jumped straight in the shower.. a few minutes later Cooper came into the bathroom so I opened the shower door and he joined me! I figured if I was covered in dirt, he was too so I washed us both up.
The next day I found a yellow dog swim vest on Craigslist for $10, decided to give that a try and Saturday morning we took Cooper to a better cleaner lake to swim in, Flowing. The boat launch area has nice big gravel out as far as you can touch, so its not dirty or nasty to walk into. We put the vest on Cooper and since I anticipated having to still help him out, did not put a leash on him. He ran right into the water and took to swimming like he'd been doing it all his life! He actually started to just head towards the middle and I got a bit frantic that he wouldnt turn around. But he did. We put a leash on him and just let him swim circles around me! He was LOVIN IT!!! He paddled above water a few times to "play" but I discouraged that and made him focus just on swimming. Derek tried to get him to retrieve bumpers in the water, he had NO interest. At home, he loves to play fetch with the bumpers, but apparently he loves the water more than fetch.
Derek did pull him out of the lake and made him do some retrieves on dry ground, we have a lot of work to get Cooper to figure out how to combine swimming with retrieving, but we are now on the right path. We have done a lot of brainstorming and talking about what is and is not working for Cooper and are happy that we seem to be progressing!
Derek took Cooper to a Hunt Test in Duvall this past Saturday while I was gone at our annual ladies ride (seperate post for that). He didnt run Cooper in the test, just took him for exposure and also Coopers daddy was there as well as his trainer. Elroy (who owns the daddy) was happy to see Cooper and hear of his progress and Butch (the trainer) was very impressed with Derek & I for the ideas we have come up with on our own with helping and training Cooper, he said we've done everything right so far and he liked that we were very logical in our thoughts and practical. He was happy to know we seem to have a good sense for training our dog so that we are not ruining him and wasting time doing it wrong. Derek helped out during the hunt test as well at one of the stations, a great way to meet people and he was able to observe what is and is not working for other "started" dogs which is the level that Cooper is at.
Derek recently self-taught himself how to make these survival bracelets which was cool, but then he started venturing into making dog whistle lanyards, leashes, duck call lanyards and more.. the office has been over-run with paracord!! He donated a couple of them to the Hunt Test as auction items for their fundraiser. Now that he is unemployed he has time to maybe learn other braids and make some to sell! :)
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