Swim Stella, Swim!

Michael Baugh, CPDT-KA, CDBC

“This dog can’t swim.” That’s what I thought as I watched her struggle, bob and tip in the pond. I was about to jump in the murky water myself when I saw Stella briefly roll onto her back and then right herself. She stepped gleefully to the shore, shook off, dropped her ball, and looked up at me. She had no idea how pathetic she had looked.

Of course, I was concerned. Stella had swum before, albeit briefly. But, this last time was different. Physics failed her. She listed to one side, nearly sank, and then went keel up. She was wholly out of her element, and I’d so wished her element was water. I wanted it badly; I wanted it with every memory of the retriever before her, with every hope of the retriever I dreamt she would become. That was the problem. This wasn’t about me. It was about Stella; and Stella couldn’t swim.

I tried to get my brain around it. Maybe it really was bad physics. Stella’s chest is unusually deep and her waist is unusually small. She’s narrow, very narrow. She’s tall and long, unnaturally so. Her face and coat say retriever, but the rest of her says whippet or Italian greyhound. Okay if I’m going to be brutally honest, if you catch her at the wrong angle the whole package screams “cartoon dog.” Maybe her body just wasn’t built for water; maybe she was too lean, too spindly. Maybe she just couldn’t swim.

When my heart’s breaking, I write. So, I wrote some veterinarian friends of mine. No, they said. There’s nothing wrong with Stella. She is quirky beautiful and fully buoyant. I wrote to a local dog swim coach (who knew?) and she said the same thing. Some dogs are naturals, others are not. Stella can learn. She can swim.

I can’t explain what happened next. Sometimes there’s no way to fix a thing set askew. Then again, sometimes there’s no holding back a thing intent on setting itself right. Stella’s new coach is an affable woman in the middle of life, with an easy smile and a gentle feel for a dog’s spirit. She welcomed us to a long glistening pool in the early light of day. “Does Stella like toys?” she asked. “Tennis balls” I answered. The rest was unstoppable. It was the simple magic of letting things happen, letting go, swimming with the current of the moment.

Stella waded into the pool for her ball, and brought it back. On the second throw, she leapt across the shallow slope into the deep. Stella’s head slipped under and then popped up high in the water, a bow splashing and awkward, and a stern dragging too low. Her coach moved with deft purpose, the subtle speed of a woman who knows her craft. She righted Stella’s hips, bringing them level to withers just below the water’s crest. Stella sailed with ease back to the shallows and out. She dropped the ball and looked back at what she’d swum.

222531_224371824265357_107851415917399_539116_2541228_n — courtesy: Rummy's Beach Club

I threw again. Again she leapt and swam. Again, and again Stella’s body stretched, and her head skimmed the break where water meets air. Her legs tucked naturally, fronts propelling, backs adjusting for balance. She used her thick retriever tail like a rudder. Stella leapt and swam. She moved with ease and grace, ball firmly in mouth, eyes gleaming in the morning sun, nowhere to be but here, nothing in mind but now. Stella leapt again and then swam some more. She panted and pushed hard against the water, a wake behind her. The air was sweet with the smell of wet dog and abandon. I moved up beside her and kissed her cheek. I would have loved her the same no matter, but oh how I love my water dog.

We stayed on like that until we were both soaked through, swimming together.

Stella at Two

Michael Baugh, CPDT-KA, CDBC

There was a night I feared she would not survive. She was twitching incessantly and crying inconsolably. We knew her disease was often fatal, but she had to survive. We’d only had her a few weeks, but already she was ours.

Something magical happens when a dog turns two, especially a retriever. She is young but no longer a puppy. She is socially mature but not yet old. The bonds she forged in the months prior become solid. All that she’s been taught, including the ability to learn, takes hold. And, she takes on the quiet wisdom that is the signature of her kind, the very best of her kind. She comes into her own.

Our dear Stellla is imperfect and quirky, undoubtedly. She stands nearly as tall as she is long. That counts for something because her height and length are each considerable in measure. She is equally lithe and narrow. She is a leggy strawberry blond. Add to that her twitch, constant and rhythmic, as if she were keeping time to a song no one else can hear. Stella is, well, odd and cartoonish and beautiful.

To be certain she is not a classic beauty like the Goldens and Labs in her genetic buffet. Hers is the beauty of movement, grace at an open run, the leap and grasp at a thrown ball, the dance of play with her own kind, strength and inhibition in equal measure. Stella is the gangly egret at rest, arresting beauty in flight, the gasp and the awe. Even when resting she is never still. Only her eyes hold fast, a lasting gaze with a subtle wink just before they close and carry her away to sleep.

Something magical happens when a dog turns two, especially Stella. She is breathtaking in the way so many normal dogs are. This is, with certainty, because of who she is. She is a dog, imperfect and beautiful and that’s enough. But, she is so much more. She is ours. We plucked her from death in a cage at a shelter and claimed her. She peed at our feet and shat and barked and we loved her just the same. She twitched in my arms and cried late into the night, fighting a virus none of us could see. I cried with her and loved her imperfectly. We were reflections of each other, the best of all that is dog and all that is human, goodness from each in equal measure.

Stella turned two today, our magical dog. Tonight she will rest by my side. I’ll watch her ear twitch as she falls into a deep refreshing sleep. She never stops moving, not ever.

Helping a Dog Meet Baby

Michael Baugh, CPDT-KA, CDBC

Dear Michael:

My daughter has a 4 month old baby. Since his birth, my tiny dog has been nothing short of a nightmare around him. He wants to get close and lick him and play with him. The more we restrain him the more he cries, pants, and barks. We dare not let him anywhere near the baby unless we have him by the collar. He doesn’t bite, just licks and prods. He is fine with toddlers we meet in the street. How can we have the baby in the house without our little dog causing such exasperation?

Recently things have improved very slightly. Whilst he is still uber uber interested in him, he now lies beside him, suffering all the involuntary arm and leg prods and jerks from the baby and rests his head on baby’s legs (when he is still, which isn’t often!). He seems to have been wanting to be very close to him all this time and of course we were prohibiting that. He is, it goes without saying, always supervised.

Cathy

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Dear Cathy:

Babies are unusual creatures to many of our dogs (and to many of us for that matter). They move differently than adult humans. They sound different and smell different. From our dogs’ point of view they are new and unusual, weird even. It sounds like your daughter’s dog is a bit nervous about the baby, or at the very least excited. We need to help him out.

You have two goals here. First, teach the dog that babies are cool. Try very hard to never yell at or hurt the dog when the baby is around. That’s only going to make things worse. In fact, only delightful things should happen when the baby is on the scene. If the baby does something weird, like scream and wiggle like a fish, you might even slip the dog a special treat. That’s called respondent conditioning (classical conditioning). Baby = good things for doggie. The idea here is to make sure the dog doesn’t start disliking the child because being around him is so awful.

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