We drove up to Boyd Lake Veterinary Center in Loveland yesterday for Winston's first swim. Everyone that I met was really nice, and the lady who was in charge of him being in the pool had just adopted a Mastiff, which set my mind more at ease (I'd been worried up to this point that I'd have to explain about their soft personality). Hooray!
I got all checked in (they needed shot records and wanted his history) and then they brought out a life jacket for him and asked if he needed it. Since he hasn't been in deep water since he was 6 months old, I had no idea whether he would know how to swim so we thought it best to put one on him. She seemed a little concerned that he wouldn't like having the jacket put on, but he was fine; it buckled in the front so it was easier to put it on than his winter coat which we slip on over his head.
I'm not allowed in the pool area, so I had to watch through a large picture window. He went out into the pool area just fine, but didn't want anything to do with getting in the pool itself. Since it was his first time, she didn't want to make it a traumatic experience for him so she came back into the building (the pool is outside) and asked one of the other employees to ask Dr. Doherty if I could come into the pool area to help coax Winston into the pool. A few minutes later, the employee came out and said that Dr. Doherty was going to help get him into the pool. I watched them get him in, and it didn't seem too bad. He wasn't happy about it, but they got him in there and weren't mean about it.
I don't know how deep the pool is, but it's over his head because once he got down the stairs into the pool and had to start swimming, he went totally under for a second and when he came back up, he was panicked and flailed about a little before he got balanced back out and into a more normal swimming motion. The pool is pretty small, so to keep him swimming, they have long lines hooked to the handle on the top of the life jacket, and they keep him between two people. They keep enough tension on the lines to keep him pretty centered in the middle of the pool. He swam normally for a short time and then almost made it to the edge of the pool before they pulled him back away from it and that caused him to flail a bit again, but then he got settled and swam normally for just a bit longer. He was definitely using his back legs, but I could tell that he was really tired.
They could tell the same thing, so they pulled him towards the steps so he could get out. They toweled him off and put his own leash back on and brought him back in to me. Dr. Doherty came in to say "hi" and also that Winston wasn't able to swim for 5 full minutes, but made it to 3.5. I'm really glad they didn't try to push him further because he was pretty exhausted.
They said that was a really good start. They'd had one client's dog who had to start at one minute and after 4 weeks built up to 13 minutes. I forgot to ask how often the dog swam to build up to that.
I can't afford to go more than twice a week, so we'll see how he does with that. Our next visit is scheduled for Monday.
Winston didn't seem too sore last night but today I can tell that he got to his limit. He's a little limpy, but not too bad, but once when he came over to the bed at my feet, he sat unexpectedly while he was circling before lying down. You should have seen the look on his face: "OOPS! Uh, I meant to do that."
We're taking a break from the sit-stands today but we've been walking several shorter walks so that he gets to stretch his legs out and doesn't get too stiff.
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