Swimming lessons (August 2005)

Well, what a weekend.
Hairyface took us to his favourite spot: the fish ladder on Crummock water. I shoulda guessed something was up when he put on his walking in watershoes but Io and I were just so excited about being up and out of the house it didn't twig!

Swimming lessons for IO! Which meant YT (yours truly) had to have 'em too. Big swizz!
It was a glorious day, dead warm and only small cloudy stuff. Hairy had his shorts on - a sight of sore eyes - and we reached the fish ladder in no time. It's less than 10 miles from home.

The bridge next to the fish ladder.
Io expected that we were off to the Kirkstile for a sit in the garden while Hairy and The S stuffed their faces and oiled their necks, she wasn't half surprised when at the water's edge he put her on the lead and started wading out into the lake with her. I scooted about in the brush searching for twigs to crunch and hoping he'd forget about me. Fat chance.

Hairyface walked quite a long way out with Io until the water was over his kness and little pup, bless her, was all of a dither. She had to swim cos the sneaksvillain found a huge rock to stand on, out in a really deep part. Then he wound the lead through the water and little sis was swimming.

She didn't like it. You could tell. She'd lost her usual wag and, at first, was dead splashy. After a bit she seemed to cotton on and had a good go. She began to look like Moss or Purdie (Hairy's friend's Golden Retrievers, who're so balmy about water they'll try and swim in a puddle!)
To be fair she developed a nice action, sleek and sharklike, and her tail was a great rudder.
The Screature was watching all this from the shore, shouting encouragement to "her" pup. She wasn't too keen when her pup had her collar unclipped, made a beeline for the side and shook water all over her!

I ought to have known what was coming next, but that stick was a really interesting texture. Quite tough at first, but then it cracked with a twisty spirally action which meant you could strip long sections off it and shred 'em really small. I'd worked my way down a long stretch of this when He called me, and without thinking I wagged my way over.
Durr brain!

He clipped me onto my lead and did the wadey out - draggy round the rock thing with me too! I mean. What's he playing at? He knows I don't do the water stuff. It messes up me collar. Takes it ages to dry out, and leaves a dark line around me neck that makes me feel like a mongrel. Anyway I showed him.. mouth just on the waterline, eyes like two small pinkpricks, ears swept back. Honest, you could almost hear the 'dur dah, dur dah' music in the background. He unclipped me too but I can't get the spatter pattern that Io gets when I shake, so I didn't even deign to try and splash The S.

I thought that'd be it, but no. Hairy had other ideas. He wanted us to enjoy it. So we'd go swimming without his help! Enjoy it! It's bloomin' water you stupid man! You don't see him rushing to jump in and splash about willy nilly, why should we? I thought. (Actually you do. Sometimes he takes his trunks with him and jumps into tarns and lakes and stuff. Dead embarrassing it is. He's swimming about like an amphibian from Stingray and we're on the side thinking "Hurry up. Someone's gonna see us!" Luckily he only does this when there's loads of leaves on the trees so we sometimes have a screen.)

This time he climbs on the fish ladder - there was no water coming over it at all -and calls us to him. Well, I mean, as if that's going to work!

We do the dutiful dog bit and look all worried on the bank. Giving it plenty of: well... we would, but we don't like the water, we're a bit scaredy... stuff. Eventually he gives up the calling idea and wades back.
This time he clips us both onto leads and wades out with us! That's not fair! We had to swim through a deep bit and the we're on a shoal in the middle of the water with swims every way back to the bank. Crafty devil!
Io wasn't happy and kept saying "I don't like this wet stuff! I want me mum!" Wuss!
I knew what was coming, and sure enough, he unclipped Io, The S called her and she swam over like she was born to it.
Huh. No hairy dog's gonna make YT look silly. So when he did the same to me I thought, I'll show her. The S didn't need to call I was over double quick. The Thorpedo of the dog world.

Now here's where me subterfuge went wonky. Hairy reached down into the water and picked up a stone. Cheeky baggage, he knows I can't resist stones. So before I realised what I was doing I was back across to Hairy to fetch the stone from him. Swimming through the deep bit without a thought.
Well, he was so pleased you could smell it pouring off him like sweat. I took the stone and swam back to The S on the bank. He did it again. So did I. This musta gone on for about twenty minutes. I was giving it the well behaved dog routine like billyo and he was just spreading more and more pleasure smell across the foot of the lake.

Two spaniels went across the footbridge by the ladder (strange that, spaniels are even wetter than retrievers about water) and they picked up the scent too. "You've got him well trained!!" They shouted across to me.
He tried to get Io to do the same thing again and again but she wouldn't - she's not discovered the joy of stones yet (she's only three). She just ran across the bridge out of the way.
The pleasure smell began to drift off and I started to pick up traces of hunger and thirst instead so I could tell what was planned. A lovely, long stroll around the lake shore to the pub and a sit in the garden, followed by a few chips for us and a leisurely jaunt back.

Wrong again! They walked us back to the car! A coupla hundred yards! Didn't even dry us and drove to the pub!
We had to sit there, in this pub garden, with other dogs and hewmings all about, whiffing of cleanness all arvo. The shame of it. At least on the walk we could have messed ourselves up a bit.
But it was worth it. Hairy now thinks I'm a keen swimmer. Ha, ha. The only way I'll be going in the wet stuff again is if he's in first. Seems like a point to me, I think.