(EP:28) Water Work & Tips to Get Your Dog Swimming!

Full transcript for Episode 28: (EP:28) Water Work & Tips to Get Your Dog Swimming!.

Tyce

Hey everyone, welcome to the Bird Dog Podcast. My name is Tyce. Today I want to talk about water work — how to introduce a dog to swimming and what to do when a dog is struggling to find its stroke. I've worked with thousands of dogs on water over the years and almost every one of them has eventually figured it out, but there are some things you can do to make that process faster and easier.

Start warm and start shallow. Spring and early summer are ideal — water that's inviting rather than shocking. Find a gradual bank where the water gets deeper slowly. Start by throwing a bumper into four to six inches of water. The dog basically runs to it on ground but there happens to be water there. That's comfortable. That's success. Then slowly stretch the distance, getting the dog a little deeper each retrieve. Baby steps, incremental — same principle as everything else in training.

Most dogs will figure out their stroke pretty quickly on their own, especially puppies. They're naturally buoyant and they'll usually just start swimming when there's no bottom to stand on. But some dogs, especially older dogs that haven't had much water exposure, will splash and thrash upright — front legs breaking the surface, head high, rear end low. It looks wrong because it is wrong. They're fighting the water instead of moving through it.

Here's what fixes it: tire them out. A dog swimming upright is working extremely hard — those front legs are doing all the work and that high head position is taxing every muscle in the neck. Eventually they get tired enough that the legs stop breaking the water, the head drops forward into position, and all of a sudden they're swimming right. That moment usually happens fast once the fatigue hits. Keep throwing the bumper, keep getting them in the water, and let exhaustion do part of the teaching.

You can accelerate this with a heavier bumper. A bigger, heavier bumper on the return creates drag that pulls the dog's head forward. When the head comes forward, the rear end comes up, and the dog gets a taste of the correct position. Dock bumpers or heavier training bumpers work well for this. Try it — you'll often see a noticeable improvement in the dog's stroke on the return leg just from the weight pulling the head down into a better position.

One important thing: the dog needs to be in water deep enough that it can't touch the bottom. If a dog can feel the bottom at all, it will try to stand. That hop-and-reach reflex will keep it upright. Get out to water that's genuinely over the dog's head so it has no choice but to actually swim. If you're working a dog in a pond that keeps running back to shallow water, you may need to get creative. Take the dog out on a kayak or small boat, set it gently in the water, then slowly paddle away from it. The dog has to follow you and has to swim to do it. Keep it in sight, go slowly, and just let it work. I've done this with dogs that couldn't get enough sustained practice from shore, and it works well to build real swim endurance and muscle memory.

One note: I said I've never had a hunting dog sink to the bottom and not figure it out. That's true. But be sensible — be in a place where you can get to the dog quickly if needed, don't start in ice-cold water, and don't throw a dog that's never swum into deep open water with no shore in sight. Use common sense. The goal is to give the dog enough reps in enough depth that it finds the stroke, then keeps building on it. Once a dog finds its stroke, it keeps it. Muscle memory takes over. Thanks for listening.