Jodie the neurotic kelpie gets better daily. There is less panicking when not within one metre of a reinventor, preferably both, less manic reactions to storms and much more eating of all of her dinner.
We decided it was time to try to deal with a big one - swimming.
The first couple of times we took her to the river, she watched her ball/frisbee go into the water, went in to her ankles and cried. Embarrassing indeed. And not a little heart-breaking.
Goodness knows what happened in her puppyhood to disabuse such an Aussie dog of the joys of water.
Perth is sweltering through a heatwave, a perfect time to try to teach her to swim. We took her to Riverside Gardens in Bayswater where there's lots of parking, the water is calm and there are nice, sandy beaches.
She was seriously worried when we went into the water, but at least she didn't cry. We tried carrying her into the water a couple of times, whereupon she barely touched the water in her haste to get to the bank. Then we coaxed her in with the frisbee and lots of encouragement.
Eventually she managed a couple of frisbee retrievals from several metres out, and at that point we decided to leave it. We'll go back and reinforce what she's learnt one or two nights this week.
After all, it's slated to be 40deg until the middle of next week.
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