Everyone knows that kids and water can lead to disaster, but many do not consider the danger it presents for pets.

Unlike young children, dogs and even cats are born knowing how to swim. But it is not the swimming itself that's the concern. Those of us who live in waterfront properties know that very often the lake frontage has a seawall keeping the land and the water separate. Often these seawalls are more than thirty inches high.

If your pet falls or jumps in the water there may be a real issue with getting back out. A large dog with long legs may have no problem – but a short legged dog could be in serious trouble.

Twenty five years ago my wife had two older Chinese Chow Chows that refused to even go near the lakefront, and they didn’t even enjoy riding in the boat so we never had to think about the danger to them.  After the chows died Mary got two Standard Poodles who also disliked the water even though they were supposed to be water dogs -- they were even equipped with webbed feet. But while they detested the water they loved to ride in the boat. They made very regal figures sitting on the two front seats of our pontoon boat and never made any attempt to jump out of the boat after the ducks.  

When we moved into our present house, the dogs had their own lower level room with a doggie door that opened into our fenced yard. Since the poodles disliked water, we did not fence across the lakefront because we did not worry about their jumping into the water.

When the poodles died from old age, we got two Pembroke Welsh Corgis. These are dwarf-type dogs with lots of enthusiasm. They get excited and react before they think it through, sort of like how kids do.

Maxie’s first swim came when he got very excited about the invasive aquatic weeds that Mary was raking in from the lake. He lunged for the dangling weeds and landed in the water. Corgis can swim, but these are not the Michael Phelps of dogs. Maxie dog paddled furiously and finally made it to the seawall. At that point we discovered that there was no way he could climb out. So Mary had to haul him out by his collar.

You would have thought that he would have learned from this, but no, his enthusiasm sent him right back in the lake at the very next rake full of sea weeds. But this time, he started swimming parallel to the wall looking for a place to get out. Unbeknownst to him, he would have been swimming for a very long time before he would have found a way out in the direction he had headed.

Had Maxie started swimming in the opposite direction he might have discovered the steps that reach down into the lake.  Since we do not want to fence the lakefront in the summer, we figured that we needed to teach Maxie where the steps were. So Mary picked Maxie up and gently tossed him into the water in front of the steps. Maxie came up mad as a “wet dog.”  Mary kept calling him until he came to her and discovered that he could climb up the steps.  Mary tossed him into the lake again, and he headed for the steps on his own.

Later that summer, he slid off the end of the dock in a frenzied attempt to heard some geese back in to the water. Maxie remembered his lesson and then headed right for the steps.

If a waterfront home is in your future, keep in mind that you will need to protect not only little kids, but also your pets. Watch for the second section in this series of blog posts which will take a look at the danger presented by waterfowl such as ducks, geese, and swans.

To read more about Maxie, check out his website at www.MaxieTheWonderDog.com ; also read some of his amusing blog postings at http://blog.MaxieTheWonderDog.com.