Just want to share with you the story of our Ramona and swimming. Firstly, it is important to know that the reason she is named Ramona is that our litter theme was Children's Book titles, and she was the 1st of the litter to do EVERYTHING. First to have her eyes open, first to escape the whelping pen (again.. and again...) first to try solid food, and so on... So she became "Comedy's Ramona the Brave". She was our 2nd pick, and we decided to keep her sister, Stella (from Stellaluna) and sell Mona. Since we are a rare breed and since we have litters only rarely, we have a pretty long waiting list and figured placing Mo would be very easy. Oddly though - it was not. The folks on our lists wanted to Show her, but not hunt her.... and we knew that Mo simply needed to be a hunting dog. In fact, if Clumbers are ever eligible to run AKC Field trials, I would bet a good $$$ that Mona would be the first Clumber field trial champion. She is THAT serious a hunter. She is also about the furthest from the stereotypical slow Clumber. No couch potato in her soul at all.
Now since we weren't keeping her, we didn't put her through the same intense training we did her sister. Don't want to bond too tightly with a pup that is leaving, right? Well as more and more homes were rejected by us (either they just wanted a bench dog, or 'red flags' like unenthusiastic spouses, bad refs, esp. from their vet... and so on) it started to become a bit silly, and before I knew it - Mona was nearly 5 months old and dangit, she was MY DOG NOW. This coincided with the start of hunt test season. So we intensified her training and discovered that she had no clue how to swim. None at all.
She would do the drowning dog paddle all the way out to the bird... and usually her butt would then come up as she grabbed the bird. Not always, though. As we started entering her in tests, she would be just fantastic on land - usually earning all 9s and 10s, and then would not be able to get the bird back in time on the water. And here's the incredible part -- she always tried as hard as she could, and never gave up. You could tell she would be getting tired, or even sometimes was really quite afraid... but she soldiered on. More than once, either a judge or a member of the gallery would start to take off their shoes to go save my dog, and I would stop them with "Don't you dare give up on her until she gives up on herself. Let her work it out." And she never gave up, and when she was too tired to keep at it, would come back to shore and let me leash her up.
She passed some, NQ'd more but always tried as hard as she could.
For 2 hunt test seasons. I can train my dogs to do a lot of stuff, but learning to swim is sort of something they need to figure out. Today, Mona is a swimming fiend! She loves to swim, and will even do it just recreationally, no bird required. She would already have her SH except her idiot handler has managed to blow her off birds the last 3 tests in a row. (Idiot handler = me)
So, my note here is that they may not catch on right away, but let them work it out if they are trying. Give them as many good fair opportunities and experience as you possibly can. Her sister Stella learned a lot younger, and for her the trick was taking her to a warm pond near Ocean Shores and having her mother (Jube) start retrieving a bumper. Once Stella got her feet into the warm water, she couldn't resist swimming out to see her mom, and never looked back. The other 2 in that litter, and our boy Briggs we got from a good friend at nearly the same age as our litter - they never had an issue at all with swimming - just hopped in and went after the bumper/bird/stick. Oh and, might be a good idea to raise all the pups with the same training intensity until they actually leave.
Good job with Maggie, and yes NEVER force them. I did that once with a dog (not a Clumber) and she would NEVER EVER trust me again near water. Even when she learned to swim, she wouldn't go near the water if I was "too close" to her. Heartbreaking and in her 14 years with me, I never could earn that trust back near water.
~ Tracy (whose best friend and touchstone buddy is Ramona, who also passed OFA when her sister didn't, and managed to turn out a better Clumber than her sister too! Yeah, I am an idiot.
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