Teaching A Greek Dog to Swim: Hela’s Adventures – Dogster

Hello, I’m Dr. Maja! Read my introduction to study extra about me and my two crossbreed canines, Lava and Hela.

So, as a canine born and raised on the attractive island of Kefalonia in Greece, you’ll suppose that swimming would come so simply to Hela. Effectively, issues aren’t all the time as they appear. After assembly Hela for the primary time final spring after which seeing her clumsy makes an attempt at staying afloat this summer season, it turned apparent that in her time in Greece, she most likely had no thought she was really residing on an island and had by no means been within the water. However she is an adventurer at coronary heart and can attempt most issues not less than as soon as.

Shouldn’t All Canine Know Swim?

Swimming comes so naturally to many canine breeds, that it’s simple to neglect that not all are such nice or enthusiastic swimmers. With Hela being a presumed Hungarian Viszla cross, primarily based on her appears to be like, countless drive, vitality ranges, and my modest vet guessing, I anticipated her to be thrilled on her first encounter with a close-by lake. Nonetheless, she was extra desirous about all of the sounds made by the frogs, whereas insisting on discovering every one. Fortunately, she didn’t get any in any respect. However she additionally confirmed no intention to get into the water any deeper than her wrists and ankles for the primary few occasions. I used to be fairly disenchanted.

Studying From Lava’s Instance

Fortunately, my different canine Lava loves swimming, which additionally took her virtually two years to appreciate. Lava will swim fairly far, pondering she will really catch a duck that’s miles away, however I wouldn’t need to burst her bubble. Anyway, Hela has now had a number of alternatives to study from observing Lava swim with confidence and ease, nevertheless it nonetheless took her one 12 months to truly attempt it out for herself, and it was something however sleek. In truth, it wasn’t one thing I’d proudly share on social media, nevertheless it was very entertaining to observe and nonetheless makes me smile.

It’s Onerous To not Snort

Effectively, it was a sight for sore eyes and an on the spot temper lifter. Alongside Lava, who was swimming gracefully and sliding throughout a nonetheless lake, there was Hela, doing one thing between swimming and leaping, making her method by way of the reeds. She was additionally attempting to shake her head on the identical time, as clearly she hadn’t but discovered how to not get water in her ears. She was on the lead, so I used to be prepared to tug her out if she acquired caught, however the sight was too humorous to intrude, and she or he appeared to have it beneath management. A minimum of I hoped so.

Fortunately, Hela Has Turned to Different Hobbies

It appeared that Hela herself was conscious that swimming was not her robust go well with, and she or he rapidly turned to her different favourite actions. One of them is digging, and she or he is simply superb at this. Sadly. All my efforts of holding the grass trying tidy have been in useless. Day by day, there’s one other gap, and it’s nice when there’s just one. Apart from digging, Hela can also be nice at discovering all of the smelly and rotten wild animal leftovers, lots of unrecognizable origin, and consuming them within the blink of an eye fixed, in addition to finding voles and rodents. She is so proficient at this that I can’t even let her dig for greater than 30 seconds, as I do know she’s going to dig one thing up.

There’s All the time Hope

We went again to the lake a number of occasions over the summer season, with unchanging outcomes. Hela was operating and leaping by way of the water, whereas Lava was making an attempt to chase geese. I attempted my greatest to fake neither of the 2 canines was mine, which was particularly laborious when a bunch of native fishermen checked out us with very critical facial expressions. Hats off to them for staying so cool when trying on the three of us. Will need to have been a sight! Regardless of Hela clearly not being a proficient swimmer, or any sort of swimmer for that matter, I continued taking her to the lake. Seeing her run round fortunately, stumping by way of the water and searching for frogs, was sufficient of a cause.