🌙🏕️🐩 - I Thought All Dogs Could Swim.

Hello. I’m back.

It was a wonderful vacation and I enjoyed every minute of it, but I did miss the life here at the Poodle Farm. There is never a dull moment here, and there was never a dull moment at the lake, either. Do you think there ever is as long as there are Poodles involved?

But this one taught me a very important safety lesson. And it’s going to allow me to introduce you to someone I’ve wanted to introduce you to for a long time.

Luna is now a very senior Standard Poodle at 14 years old. She still loves to go, but she has slowed down a lot.

About a year and a half ago, a two-year-old Standard named Phoebe bounced into the Poodle Farm and right into my heart.

Phoebe is like Luna only in breed and sex. In everything else, they couldn’t be more different, and I think that was exactly what I needed.

Luna is elegance, grace and style, splashed with a healthy dose of doggy common sense. I can take her anywhere.

I call Phoebe my wrecking ball.

Phoebe is enthusiasm, energy and a level of affection for her humans that I haven’t seen in many years. You will notice nowhere in there do I mention common sense. She has none. I do love her dearly, but oh, can she try me.

And try me she did last week.

We have a pontoon, and we love to take the dogs out on the lake. Phoebe had been on the pontoon before, but for some reason this time she was especially enthusiastic about it.

It was our very first trip out, and Phoebe and Alfredo my cavalier poodle mix had ridden with me from the dock where we put the boat in over to where our campsite is. Phoebe got so excited that when we were a good six feet from shore, she decided it was time to get out of the boat and go find the rest of her family.

Out she went.

I didn’t think anything of it for about 12 seconds.

Then I realized that a little blonde head was not bopping down the beach like it should have been.

I’m looking around, thinking she’s to one side or the other, and then I realized she was not.

My dog was under the boat.

And at that point, all I could think about was: What was she thinking?

It was just me and her and Alfredo.

And Alfredo was no help at all.

I grew up on beaches and in pools. My mom loved the water and so do I. I was a lifeguard and coached a swim team in college. I’m very comfortable in the water. But it has been a very long time since college. A very long time.

I grounded the boat and didn’t even bother tying off, because when I looked under the boat, there was my dog paddling.

In the wrong direction.

The next 60 seconds were the longest of my life.

Our pontoon is 27 feet long, and Phoebe was at the end of it and I was at the front of it. I kicked off my flip-flops and in the water I went, clothes and all.

(Special note to my readers: the iPhone 17 is indeed waterproof. I know because mine was in my pocket.)

I kicked on out because where we were grounded there was about three feet of shallow water over a sandy base, and then it dropped down 20 feet in a hurry. I started side-stroking, trying to keep my head above water so I could find this silly Poodle.

Surely, as soon as she got out from underneath the boat, she would head for shore.

But no.

At this point I’m at the back of the boat. Phoebe is a good 10 feet out and away from the back of the boat, and she is paddling in circles with her head barely above water.

And that is when I realized the most heart-wrenching fact.

My dog can’t swim.

In fact, she was caught in something I now know can happen when an inexperienced or panicked dog tries to swim. Instead of using all four legs, they may concentrate on their front legs and become almost vertical in the water. They are both trying to keep their heads up above water and trying to find stable land with their back feet. It takes tremendous energy, and it can become dangerous very quickly.

Phoebe was in over 20 feet of water. There was no way she was going to touch the bottom and keep her head above water, too. She was paddling only with her front legs, trying to keep her head above water and going in circles, with no thought in that blonde head that heading for shore may be a good idea and using the back legs an even better idea.

Mama to the rescue.

I never could get her out of that vertical position. So I would lift up her hind end while I was treading water and shove her toward the shore.

She would go maybe three feet and stop again, rear end down and chin up.

I would stroke up, tread water with just my legs and use my arms to lift up that hind end and shove.

Lift and shove.

Lift and shove.

Lift and shove.

I know it took less than a minute.

It felt like hours.

We got to shore. She scrambled up, shook everything off and took off to examine the world as if nothing had happened.

Meanwhile, I’m on my hands and knees in the shallows, heaving in great gulps of air, knowing two things.

First, I need to add more cardio—and, if at all possible, swimming—to my exercise routine.

I was exhausted.

Second, we were not getting back on that boat without life jackets.

I have dog jackets, I just hadn’t been using them. That changed. In fact, all the dogs wore life jackets for the rest of the vacation.

Then I went to Walmart and bought a very nice Bodyglove brand lifejacket for me.

We have the inexpensive orange ones. I wanted better. Because if one of my dogs went into the water again, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was going in after them. And after that little exercise, I also knew how tiring it could be to tread water with just leg power while trying to rescue a panicked dog.

So, lesson learned.

Not all dogs can swim.

Not only that, some of them get caught in their own minds.

And if you spend time around the water with your dogs, don’t assume they know what to do simply because they’re dogs. Life jackets are now standard equipment on our pontoon—for them and for me.

And that, my friends, is my introduction to you of Phoebe. My Facebook friends have enjoyed for many years hearing about Luna and our adventures together.

I suspect with Phoebe, it’s going to be more misadventures.

I am very glad to be back. I spent the day catching up on correspondence and checking in with my team. I’m very thankful for the strong leaders we have here at the Poodle Farm because everything kept working smoothly while I was away.

Today we also said hello to Kiwi, a sweet little Labradoodle who was found as a stray in Pickens, South Carolina.

And I got to see the beginnings of a facelift in our matchmaker’s office. I can’t wait to see how that is going to turn out. It is going to be gorgeous.

So we’re back.

And I’m looking forward to each evening sharing with you the adventures—or misadventures—here at the Poodle Farm.

A little more about dog water safety:
I found an excellent article from Whole Dog Journal after our adventure with Phoebe. It explains why not all dogs instinctively know how to swim, what happens when a frightened or inexperienced dog becomes vertical in the water, and why a properly fitted canine life jacket matters. I hope it will save someone out there from having to go through what Phoebe and I did.

Whole Dog Journal — Dogs Water Safety