A Dip in the Pool

Our dog Leela is a Newfoundland. These dogs were bred for water rescue and hauling things up in Canada, where it is almost always frigid. She is the perfect dog for Iowa, where it is cool 8 months out of the year. Leela loves winter and had a blast frolicking in the snow for the first four months that we had her.

She never seemed to mind the weather, even when we had a blizzard with over a foot of snow on the ground. In fact, she loved it. While I dreaded putting on all of my winter gear to take her for a walk twice a day, she looked forward to it. Now that the weather is starting to get warm, she is starting to get wiped out at even the slightest bit above 70. Let's fix that.

We bought her a kiddie pool last weekend and had fun watching her splash around. She's taken to water like a natural and we're so excited to introduce her to lakes where she can actually swim.

We don't have a fence in our backyard (a lot to tackle, maybe in a year or two?) so she has to be tied to a leader line. She doesn't let it affect her though (except when she's trying to walk around every garden fence post and gets tangled in a massive heap) and she seems to have a lot of fun in her pool. So far, she most likes to chase/fetch two liter pop bottles and her squeaky ball. I'm betting when summer hits she's going to lay in it to stay cool.

She's not very photogenic yet. That's probably because she's an eight-month-old puppy and has the attention span of well, a goldfish. Getting her to stay still for a photo is the equivalent of pulling teeth to her. But we're working on it.