Adventure at the Pool

The M-F pool opened its doors for a dog only swim day so of course we had to take our water dog Katy there. She's waded around in the fountains on campus before and splashed around in puddles - even tracking the flow of water down a street to its source - a broken pipe.

But she has not swum anywhere since she left her lakeside home in the mountains when she was 14 weeks old. We thought that if we brought her to the pool that she'd just dive right in. She's a Newfoundland. They are bred for water rescue and have the huge fully webbed paws to prove it.

You can lead a water dog to water but you can't make her get in. She spent the first 20 minutes running around the edges of the pool and was obviously nervous about getting in. We put her in the pool twice but she seemed slightly panicked so Sleyed pulled her out right away.

She watched the other dogs splash around and paid close attention to the retrievers. They were the only ones actually swimming.



She put her paws in a couple of times and stared at the water. We waited with baited breath for the moment she'd go in on her own.

Finally someone accidentally tossed a floating frisbee over and that piqued her interest. She slid in, got spooked, and swam a U-turn back to safety where Sleyed pulled her out again.

He did that maybe 5 more times before she gained enough confidence to JUMP in.

After that it was all over - the NEWFyness took over!

Before we knew it she was jumping in, retrieving the frisbees, and trying to race the retrievers to the toys.

She's a smooth swimmer - very graceful and obviously STRONG.

She's fairly maneuverable too, but the labs definitely had her beat for speed in the water. She's a B-52 bomber and they were the MIGs.


The photographer from our newspaper was there to capture her Newfyness. He got a great dive - the classic limbs fully extended belly flop into the water. So gorgeous!

At one point she posed for him - stood right in front of his camera with her mouth and jowls full of frisbee. She held the pose for several seconds. What a ham.

Here she is hamming it up for me.

I definitely love the Newf.

What?! We have to go home?
Just 1 more dive, PLEASE!!!!

Oh fine - I guess we can go home now. (She got a CHEESEBURGER)