Swimming with dogs

Why I'll make a good father, at the expense of my children.


A few days ago, Rita and I went on a date. We went to Cherry Beach to take pictures in preparation for an upcoming wedding that Rita was going to shoot (although she didn't actually get to the wedding, more on that in the daily digression). So we took some pictures until my camera accidentally ran out of batteries that I had neglected to check. Thus left to her own creative devices, Rita gravitated towards the dog park at Cherry Beach, where she started taking pictures of dogs coming out of the water. Dogs are great subjects because you don't have to ask them to sign a model release waiver.

While she was taking pictures of dogs, my dead camera and I started talking to dog owners about getting dogs to swim. As it turns out, many dogs need to be coaxed into the water the first few times. People like Cherry Beach for this because they (the dogs) can see the bottom, which apparently makes it easier somehow. I call bullshit, because dogs swim with their heads out of the water in such a way that they are never looking down. But maybe it's easier for getting them in. Anyway, the dogs were all having lots of fun and the water was clean, refreshing, and filled with old eroded bricks that constitute the fill material that Toronto is generally composed of from Lakeshore Avenue south. I had lots of fun looking at the old bricks. But I digress.

So we got it in our heads to take our dogs swimming. Swimming is good for dogs in the summer because dogs don't sweat, and they overheat very quickly during the day. As such, the water is great for keeping the dogs nice and cool (this turned out to be absolutely true). It's also a zero-impact workout, which is good for our older dog, Jax, who takes glucosamine-chondroitin pills for his achy joints. He takes them in peanut butter. Dogs will eat anything with peanut butter on it. Anything. Even glucosamine-chondroitin pills.

Plus, who doesn't like a happy swimming doggy? And by teaching our dogs to swim, I will save our family hundreds of dollars that Rita has allocated for little doggy personal flotation devices. Why does she so badly want to equip our dogs with PFDs? I'll never know.

So we took them. Rita preferred the method of hovering close to the water in hopes that the dogs would just go in and start doing laps. I was more savvy. I picked up Jovi, carried her 15m out, and dropped her in the water. AND GUESS WHAT? She swam back to shore! She also vowed never to trust me ever again for the next two minutes, at which point she forgets what just happened and we repeat the process.

You might be asking yourself, "how did you teach her so quickly??" Answer: Jovi already knew how to swim. I just equipped her with what she needed (i.e. the prospect of drowning) to do it. Children also know how to swim instinctively. Everyone who owned a copy of that Nirvana album with Smells Like Teen Spirit on it knows what I'm talking about. I will have to similarly equip my child for swimming, and thus avoid years of arguing about the necessity of going to swim lessons (if my child is anything like his father). I failed "maroon" like five times, and I do not wish that kind of mediocre athletic record on any of my kids.

My cousin, the doctor, also dropped his newborn baby in a lake to see if she would swim. She did. Case closed. Doing it too.

Daily Digression:
Rita couldn't shoot the wedding because the paid-photographer said she was bringing two assistants, and that there wouldn't be any room. Cough. What about the other 300 guests with iPhones that will be taking pictures? How will she deal with them? "HEY EVERYONE! SIT THE FUCK DOWN AND JUST ENJOY THIS! I GOT IT!".

If a wedding photographer needs to have just one skill, that skill should be flexibility. Because weddings sometimes don't go according to plan. If you can't work at a wedding while other people are taking pictures, you are going to have one seriously hard time working. That's like an engineer that can't work around computers. Or a cowboy that can't work around mooing.