Conditioning Your Sporting Dog To Water

Conditioning your Sporting Dog to Water

Your hunting dog will be required to swim in water and you want him/her to be familiar and comfortable in water, whether it’s a stream, river or lake. If your dog is afraid of water, then you won’t ever be able to acquire a true hunting dog.
Ideally, when your puppy is still, in what we call in our videos, pre-school (see FamilyDogs website), that is between 8 and 12 weeks, you want to introduce him/her to water. If you have an older dog who has never been in a lake or stream or is already swimming in water, you will want to also follow these same techniques.
If you have a well-bred dog from good hunting stock, getting him to love water is going to be easy. But still, to paraphrase the old song, �break it to him gently.� The last thing you want to do is make Pup afraid of the water. Do you have a child? When you introduced your child to water, did you take her out and fling her into the nearest raging river? Of course, you didn’t. Use the same common sense with your young dog that you used with your child.
Walk Pup to water’s edge. It should be a quite, shallow pond. He should have been retrieving bumpers for fun and play since the day you brought him home. The bumper is nothing new to him. He knows what it is and he wants to have the thrill of retrieving it. Now toss the bumper a few feet out into shallow water. Give the �fetch� command in an upbeat, happy voice and see what Pup does. He may bound in after it.
It’s more likely, though, that Pup will be hesitant. He may study the water cautiously. That’s fine; it shows he has good survival instincts. Toss the bumper into the shallow water again, giving that happy, upbeat �fetch� command. If Pup still seems unsure of the water, wade out into the water and �jitterbug� the bumper around in front of Pup to get his attention. Show Pup you aren’t afraid of the water. Call him in with excited, loving voice. Don’t raise your voice if he refuses to come in. Stop and try it again the next day. The �Water Dog� and �Game Dog� DVDs show excellent sessions on this.
When Pup shows excitement for the bumper, toss it just far enough into the water that he will have to get his feet wet to get it. As soon as Pup gets the bumper, praise him and try it again. This time, get Pup to go a little farther out into the water. A few of these exercises might be enough for the first day.
The next day, try tossing the bumper from the bank. Pup should be familiar with the water by now and will probably bound after the bumper with great enthusiasm. If he doesn’t, wade back into the water and excite him with the �jitterbug� bumper. He’ll soon come in after it.
After Pup is wading into the water to retrieve the bumper, the next step is to increase the distance. Simply toss the bumper out farther, giving an upbeat command of �fetch�. Your dog will soon be swimming out, retrieving bumpers and returning them to you.
You started in a shallow part of the pond, so Pup could wade into the water. The next step is to get him to dive into deeper water. To give him the experience of diving, go to a part of the pond where it’s deeper off the bank. Toss the bumper and give the �fetch� command. If Pup is feeling comfortable in the water, he will probably dive in after it.

Best of Luck with your pup and happy hunting!!