Adventure Details
This was Ella’s second time boating. I brought her small crate along so she would have a safe space to go when she wasn’t feeling it, which worked out well. When underway she spent most of that time in her crate. When we moved slower or were stopped, she was out on the deck with everyone.
Steve and Tori joined us on the boat and Jess and Joe came with their jet skis. When we anchored in a calm cove, I inflated the dock and everyone got in the water. I put Ella on the dock since she was mostly comfortable with that from her first time boating. She saw Jessie’s jet ski nearby, and must have thought it looked like the yellow exercise peanut she has to balance on at canine conditioning class, because she jumped right up onto the seat. We actually think she was trying to figure out how to get *back* on the boat. After balancing there for a bit, she made her way back onto the dock, and we pulled it further from the boat.Eventually I joined her on top of it, and slowly dunked her back feet into the water. Since she wasn’t panicky, I put her completely in the water and she swam a little bit and then came right back. I pulled her back up to rest a bit. We did this a couple more times.
Once I was back in the water with everyone else, she remained on the dock but started whining. I thought maybe she needed to potty, so we had the idea to pull her to the shore on the inflatable dock. As we were heading that way, she got off and started swimming towards land – and FAST.
Once to land, she was happy to have 4 paws on the ground again, but was more interested in the waves crashing to shore and making noise. She kept trying to chase/attack the waves as they came in, which was pretty funny. She did so good swimming, and she’s so strong! Unfortunately none of us got photos or videos of her swimming since we were all in the water with her, but now we know the girl can SWIM!
