An Afternoon at the Lake

My sister in law had mentioned in passing last weekend about how her dog, Baxter, loved swimming in the water at a local park. After she had talked about it, we made plans to meet up there Sunday to let the dogs all go for a swim together. We weren't sure if we were going to make it happen due to the weather, but everything cleared up around 4:00 so we gave it a shot. The dogs had so much fun!! Chubbs has never been fond of getting wet past his ankles, but today he surprised us all and took off swimming! This was the first time that Einstein has been swimming and I am sad to report that......he did not have the coordination yet to swim. He kept trying to find the bottom of the lake with his feet, so he was sinking fast!!

For those of you who don't know, english bulldogs are not known for their swimming abilities. Because they are so top heavy, many of them have a problem with swimming (they sink) and many of them die from drowning. About a year ago, I took Chubbs to his first Bulldog Play Group at the peta dog park in norfolk. There is some water there for dogs to jump into. I noticed that all of the bulldog owners started pulling out these orange life jackets to put on their dogs. At this point I had not known that bulldogs could not swim. Needless to say after seeing one bulldog at the play group fall in the water....and sink, Chubbs and I made a stop at petsmart to get a life jacket. I still remember Jonathan's reaction when I told him that I was a buying a life jacket for our bulldog!! Ha!

Anyway, next time we go to the lake, the lifejacket will come back out and Einstein will get a chance to try it out. Just for kicks and giggles, I posted a picture of the very first time we put the life jacket on Chubbs. He HATED it and he did not move for 15 minutes...he stood in the middle of our living room completely frozen.

P.S. Because it was still sprinkling I left my camera in the car so I have no pictures of them swimming. The pictures posted are the boys on the way home from swimming. Next time I will have to get pictures and a video!