Seriously, I know my voice sounds super weird in this video... that is not my normal voice. For some reason, if I make my voice high, or strange (with a lot of range), it's easier to get her to do something she doesn't want to...
...like go in water that's deeper than her ankles...
This is after 2 days of luring her into the water, inch by inch, but pretty good, eh? Eventually I got her out past the boat, so the water would have been about 4-5' deep. The funniest was, a few times, it's like she'd forget to paddle and would suddenly sink until just her face was visible.
I'm hoping (maybe) I'll eventually get her to jump off the dock... but that might take another 6 years of encouragement.
I had a chat last weekend on a hike with the owner of a dog (she was dog-walking two others, but the dog she had acquired had lived its entire 9 years in an apartment until a few days ago so the other dogs were helping teach her to BE a dog). It was her second walk -- and first time swimming -- and she utterly loved it.
ReplyDelete... I am, also, resisting the urge to leave a comment on youtube of 'fake' or 'photoshopped' :)
sounds like my parent's dog... a couple who lived overseas owned her before, and when they went 'home' for 6 months out of the year, they kept the dog shut up in a closet and had a house keeper drop by once a day to let the dog out to go to the bathroom. They also had her in one of those shock-collars...
DeleteSo, my parents have had her for a couple years now, and the dog doesn't know how to play, doesn't make a single sound, and is seriously the strangest dog ever... but, I guess after 5 years of being shut up in a closet with a shock-collar, it's no wonder she's weird. All she does is eat, and spends most of the day lying down not moving. Even though my parents have a 1.3 acre property, she just stays on the deck all day by the back door... has zero interest in wandering around, walking, sniffing, etc.
It's sad how often people get a pet they don't really have time for. Too many of them end up in shelters, or being forcibly taken away by the SPCA.
Sounds like you met a good pet owner :)
Berkeley, my cat, was as rescue pet as well