Who else is excited for the summer weather?!
Here in New Brunswick we are currently experiencing a heatwave! This brings lots of questions on how exactly to keep your pup cool during the summer months. There are tons of ways to keep your pup cool, but there’s no doubt about it that swimming in the water is the best way to quickly cool your dog down and keep them cool. So let’s get started!
Things you’ll need!
- High value treats
- Water toys
- Small plastic pool
- Water (duh!)
Some dogs are naturally more drawn to the water, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t teach your pup to love the water. I’m not claiming that this will work for every single dog, but in the majority of cases you’ll have a water loving dog in no time with a little patience and training.
Start by determining whether your dog is motivated more by food or toys, and use whichever your puppy prefers. It’s best for this to use both treats and toys eventually but start with your dogs favourite.
Treat method
If your puppy really loves food, kibble may be just fine, but we choose to get the good stuff out when teaching new things! Some favourites in our household are dehydrated liver, chopped hot dogs, cubed cheese, but whatever your dog likes will work!
Start by just walking your puppy around the pool to see their reaction, don’t put any pressure on them and whatever you do, don’t force them into the pool. Forcing them in, too quickly will often have the opposite effect and you’ll end up with a puppy that is scared of the water.
This will go one of two ways, either your puppy will go right in the pool, or they’ll go around it. If they go right in, perfect, you have a confident puppy, reward them heavily with treats and tell them how amazing they are, and repeat! Most puppies will go around the pool though, and that’s fine too.
If you have the second kind of puppy, start by taking a treat and luring them into the pool. It may take a few tries but if you reward them for the littlest try, they’ll catch on quickly. Some puppies will do much better if you walk right in with them, and some don’t need it. Some puppies need to be rewarded for going near the pool and never stepping foot inside (yet!), and some can be rewarded for putting one paw in, and some will jump right in after the treat. Move through the steps as slowly as you need to for your puppy, but once your puppy is confidently going in the water for a treat or when you point (I use the command “go in the water”) then you can move on to the next steps! Hopefully your puppy will also start going into the pool for fun to cool down without being asked!
Toy method
First grab your puppy’s favourite water toy and get them all excited playing with it away from the pool. Once they are really into it, bring them near the water and see what they do if you throw it in the water.
Note: Your dog should already be toy motivated and know how to fetch and tug, etc.
If they go fetch it out of the pool, throw them a party and play with their toy away from the pool again. Repeat a bunch of times and eventually they should love fetching it out of the water and it will definitly cool them down and tire them out. If they really don’t want to go in, i’ve had good sucess with tying the toy to their flirt pole and getting them to chase it into the pool.
To increase difficulty you can then move onto toys they don’t love quite as much, get them to “leave it” for a minute before fetching or move into larger bodies of water such as the beach or river.
Working with toys they don’t love as much is a great way to practice building their toy drive. You’ll have to get very active and excited until they get excited about the toy too. Basically don’t give up until they start playing with the new toy, just like their favourite. This is also a great activity to do with all toys, not just their water toys! Switch out their toys often to keep it interesting.
Getting them to “leave it” requires them to know what “leave it” means. So if they don’t know yet, go back and teach them before doing this step. Even if they know leave it well, you’ll want a leash for this part. Put a leash on your puppy, then say “leave it” and throw the toy into the pool. If they go to get it, pop the leash lightly and say”no”, keeping in mind that you don’t want to discourage them. Once they leave it and look at you, say “okay” and release the puppy. Holding them back like this will make them NEED to get the toy even more, which will build confidence, drive and enthusiasm in the water.
To start at the beach or river you’ll have to check out our next post!
Happy swimming! Comment and let us know how your puppy does, we are happy to answer any questions you may have!