Afraid of Swimming

[Lil Charlie]

Charlie is a 7 month old pup and its starting to get pretty hot where I live and I really want to get him to like swimming. A friend of mind has a pond at her house and her dog goes swimming all the time in it but when Charlie goes out there with her he will only sit on the edge. He refuses to get in. We have a like in our home and I will be taking over there soon, anyone have any advise about how to deal with him??
Thanks,
Charlie Boy's Mom

 

[hanley]

Most Boxers don't swim, very few can. Get him a life jacket.

 

[Diesel2002]

My Mom has a pool and her mixed breed dog loves to swim. But her Boxer, and my Boxers hate it. Whenever we go to dog parks with ponds, the Boxers just go in about ankle deep and won't venture out further. We have tried coaxing them or to make it more fun by throwing in a ball and going in ourselves. They won't have any part of the water either. That's ok, I am a land lover too.

 

[Kathie11]

We just taught Chevy how to swim few weeks ago. He is obsessed with fetching tennis balls so we started throwing him a tennis ball in the shallow end and with each throw we would throw it a bit further until he couldn't reach the bottom with his toes. By the end of the weekend we would throw the ball pretty far and he got every single ball. He had a blast!

 

[LovNBoxers]

My two older boxers have been in the pool by accident. Jesse got out on his own both times that I know of. I had to rescue Beau. Neither dog like the water and Beau has a semi fit if anyone gets in or by the pool. (He scares our pool guy)

Lil Hank has been in the pool about 6 timeswith me. I was teaching him to swim to the steps. One Sat he feel in the pool on found the steps on his own. YEAH!!!!!! He came walking in the house soaking wet.

In my opinion the younger you get the dog acclimated to the pool/water the easier it is. You would have to DRAG my two older ones within 2 feet of the pools edge.

 

[Az Boxr Lovr]

Hi. Joe doesn't like to swim either. He can swim though. We have a pool and every year it takes at least 3 people to "help" him get in. I do this just to make sure he still can swim. He will bark at the kids and he love it when they splash him, but that's about it. If you are concerned about the heat, why not hook up a sprinkler for him to play in?

 

[elvis_baby]

Elvis can swim as he went in the sea when a wave was coming, lost his footing and swam back to shore, however he will not swin out of choice and will on padle ankle deep. Our last Boxer was so front heavy chested that when he dried to swim he just kept on bobbing under like a duck!

 

[bucca]

chloe is six and just started to go in the water. she never did before. it happened on its own so dont give up.