The Doggie (doesn’t) Paddle
Last week, my mother-in-law, Jackie, was in town to hang out with us for the week. We had a super fun visit, but that’s nothing new. I love when Jackie comes to town. We talk about teaching (she was my teacher when I was in middle school!), we shop, we eat good food. She’s a lot of fun.
One afternoon, we were sitting by the pool with the kids when Big Molly came trotting up to the side of the pool. Molly is not a fan of the pool, but we’ve never been able to tell if she is scared or if she just doesn’t know what to do. So, by her third pass next to the pool, I got this great idea. I would pick her up and throw her in.
That’s right. My idea was to PICK UP my 75 POUND DOG and THROW her into a SWIMMING POOL.
This was bound to go well.
I got out of the pool and snuck up on Molly. We’ve tried to throw her in before, but she runs away, so I thought maybe I could catch her on a sneak attack. I was just positive that if she got IN the water, she would realize her true black lab roots and swim off into the sunset.
So, I corner her in our backyard and then pick her up. All 75 pounds of her. I grabbed her around the middle and her front paws went straight into the air. It was kind of like holding a giant, heavy, long stick because she went completely rigid.
And then she started flailing. She started spinning herself around until we were face to face, bear-hugging. In the process, she gave me this really pretty bruise on my right calf.
At this point, I was close to the pool and my leg really hurt and Molly was super heavy, so I just dropped her so very ungracefully into the pool.
Where she sank like a rock.
Seriously.
She just sank right down to the bottom.
Panicked, I jumped into the pool after her and managed to somehow drag all 75 pounds of my WET dog to the steps of the pool. During this process, Molly was also panicking (rightfully so), and she scratched up my left thigh really badly.
The whole time I was dragging her to the side of the pool, I was yelling out, “YOU’RE A LAB! YOU’VE GOT WEBBED FEET, FOR GOD’S SAKE! SWIM!” But Molly clearly thought that physically CLIMBING up my body was the best way to get out of the pool. Swimming was for suckers.
For the rest of the afternoon, Molly wouldn’t even look at me. Any time I spoke to her, she would look the other way and completely ignore me. I felt really bad, so I let her eat half my chicken at dinner and we made up.
So now, I’m hobbling around everywhere because I’m sore from bootcamp and I’m starving because of my bootcamp detox diet and asking random strangers to describe in detail what they ate for lunch AND my legs are so bruised that they look like I’ve been in a bar fight.
I’m a hot mess, I tell you!
8 Comments
Melissa
Ouch! I have no experience with swimming dogs, but would think most dogs don’t mind water if its at a lake or beach and they can walk into the water, but would assume they don’t like to be thrown in! That’s a great story though! I have a hard time playing in the yard with my boxer, because he likes to play rough and leaves scratches and bruises that look a little like that all over my legs (though not quite as bad!)
Jenn
Next time, give Bean the video camera before you get any great ideas! Lol!
Janet
I second this idea. I’d be wincing in sympathy….and laughing my fool head off. Sorry.
Emily R.
All you need to complete being a hot mess is a box bite (from box jumps). It will get better.
Jenna
Again … I’m sorry, but I’m crying from laughter! Poor Molly and Katie!!
Renee
Ouch! I had a black lab once who didn’t like to swim (she could swim, but preferred not to). She had her own kiddie pool though that she liked. 🙂
Alex
Sorry to say this Katie but well deserved! the worst thing you can do to a dog that is scared to be in the pool is to actually force her! we tried that with our two dogs and none of them EVER recovered. Until this day (like 7 years after the event) my dog doesn’t want to swim.
Hope you feel better soon…
Jaime
I totally did the same thing a few weekends with our dog and still have battle scars to prove it! Our dog is a 60 lb. beagle/lab mix. I thought, well he doesn’t bark as much as our other dog so maybe he is more lab than beagle and he always gives the pool the “I really want to jump in there look” but never does so a few weekends ago, I picked him up and in he went. To the bottom he went and came back up flailing, but not really going anywhere so I jumped in to help and said the exact same things as you along with “You are totally disappointing your lab ancestors!” (in actually more ways than one since he is scared of birds and rabbits so I guess he is technically disappointing his beagle ancestors too!). He is the best dog ever though and forgave me pretty quickly – well as soon as the cheeseburgers came off the grill 🙂