Puppy Learns to Swim

It was Memorial Day weekend. The start of tourist season on Cape Cod. The official start of Summer.

It's also usually the first weekend of the year when we all head over to jump in the Lake. The aunts, uncles, and cousins all trample on over to Chatham, and kick off summer.

Sometimes, this includes the Doggy members of the family.

Puppy came along. Now four months old, it was high time to teach this Cape Cod Dog how to swim. She was carried out into the Lake, well over her head, and gently released into the water as the rest of us watched and cheered.

My husband tortured her like this twice, before the light bulb finally went off in her head.

"Wait a minute!" she barked with glee. "I'm not going to sink - I can swim!"

Once the realization struck her, she was bounding back into the water on her own, playing with the cousins - human and doggy - chasing sticks, following kayaks, and having a grand ol' time.


By the end of the long afternoon, she'd had enough. She still wanted to swim, but she had gotten so thoroughly wet and so thoroughly chilled that she couldn't stop shivering. We wrapped her in a fluffy beach towel, and had to carry her back up from the beach, up the hill to where the car was parked.

So maybe May isn't the warmest time to learn how to swim.

But she learned.