Relative Something

When I took Asher to visit the shoreline of the lake for the first time on Friday he showed no interest in getting his paws wet. It was unclear whether he would find a reason to discover the joys of cooling off with a splash in the wonderfully clear water of Big Round Lake.

The first milestone accomplished for us yesterday was the successful introduction to two of the dogs of the families residing next door to us. Asher made friends with a giant Newfoundland, “Bear” and a Yellow Lab, “Lulu” without incident.

We are challenged with the trick of Asher not being reliable at obeying our calls when allowed off-leash but not being able to confine him to a leash around the free-roaming dogs he is meeting because of the power imbalance that introduces.

One positive outcome occurred in the afternoon when we coerced Asher toward the beach on the way home from a free ramble he embarked on and found Lulu fetching thrown sticks in the lake. The energy of Lulu splashing into the water was enough to pull Asher out of his apprehension about getting wet.

He slowly advanced in successive trips in and out of the water as he saw Lulu swimming after the stick, hopping in great leaps to deal with the deeper and deeper depths.

With all of us encouraging Asher, he eventually did a little swimming with Lulu when it was too deep for him to touch but then his interest in getting after Lulu and her stick forced us to call for a break before the conflict became more serious.

Today at Wildwood we have a pickleball tourney and community dinner to look forward to. Somewhere in there, I expect we will find another chance to let Asher try chasing one of his own toys out into the water to advance his swimming skills.

Depends on whether he will be alone at the beach or with other canine competitors.

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