Lab swimming question

fabk

Hi Ladies

I mostly lurk this board, but thought I would come to you with a question.

We have a 6 month old yellow lab and she LOVES to be in the water. We are super happy with how quickly she took to swimming and jumping into the water. However last weekend was the first time we actually were in the water with her.

Well I guess all of our retrieving training has paid off, because she thinks she needs to retrieve us from the water when we are swimming.

We want to nip this in the butt right away, as we don't want her to hurt or accidentally drown someone (esp kids). Any suggestions for getting her to swim without attacking people? (By attack, I mean she wants to be right up on you in the water, if you are swimming, she will swim right up your back and take you by surprise, she is pretty fast, or she will try and climb you while treading water and wants to get you to go back to the shore.)

bekahdrum

I am not going to be any help, but our lab does the same thing.  She has since she was a puppy too.  We just warn other adults that are in the water with us and keep an eye on her (don't let her near) around kids.  I actually just ordered her a doggy life jacket and I am hoping her being able to float on her own without paddling the whole time will help.

Meinschatz11

I'm a lurker but wanted to weigh in b/c we had the same issue with one of ours. We taught them the "leave it" command when they were pretty young and use it lots for toys/other dogs/small animals etc. It transferred quickly when we got in the water. If they came to close, we gave the command and they stopped advancing towards us. Reward verbally, rinse, repeat. Hope you find something that works! We love swimming with ours! Also, having something else for them to fetch in the water helps. We really like the Kong Wubbas.

fabk

Meinschatz11:

I'm a lurker but wanted to weigh in b/c we had the same issue with one of ours. We taught them the "leave it" command when they were pretty young and use it lots for toys/other dogs/small animals etc. It transferred quickly when we got in the water. If they came to close, we gave the command and they stopped advancing towards us. Reward verbally, rinse, repeat. Hope you find something that works! We love swimming with ours! Also, having something else for them to fetch in the water helps. We really like the Kong Wubbas.

We tryed stay, which she is good at obeying, but I will try Leave it. We are going to mil's cottage next week, and the water is a lot shallower there, so we will be able to work on her more there hopefully!!