This past weekend half of our team was able to help out at Lickety Splits' annual Training Days workshop. It was a great event and a really fun way to spend the weekend. It was wonderful to see so many green dogs and handlers make so much progress in such a short time. Lickety Splits has helped our team so much - we were thrilled to be able to reciprocate by helping out this weekend.
All of our dogs love swimming, so they have all been doing a lot of that so far this summer. The Vegas crew is fortunate enough to have Kathy and Alex's ginormous pool, which has already hosted several mega-dog-swim-fests. In fact, one of my favorite memories of this summer will always be driving up to race at Stampede's June tournament one day, then driving back to Vegas and swimming all of the dogs that night at Kathy and Alex's pool. When you also add Alex's killer grilled burgers and hot dogs, it was a totally perfect day and just what summer should always be about.
We have also had a blast swimming and hanging out with Rude Dogs West. You all rock! THANK YOU!
Here in San Diego, we have been taking our dogs to Fiesta Island pretty regularly to run and swim. (I'm not gonna lie, Fiesta Island is a freaking awesome place to take your dogs: it is a 90 acre fenced in dog beach.) I have also discovered a great place to take my dogs for a straight-up swimming workout. Cutting Edge K9 Rehab is only 10 minutes from my house. You can do physical therapy with your dog if needed, or if you have healthy dogs, you can rent pool time and do 30 minutes of nonstop water retrieves. It is awesome exercise for my dogs, not to mention they do not run crazy around the pool and shred their feet!
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| Dragon and Seek at Cutting Edge K9. photo by Trish Penick |
Speaking of swimming, we on X are giving our dogs electrolytes to drink prior to going into the water this summer. Water toxicity is something that everyone with water-loving dogs should be aware of. It is a life-threatening condition that has happened to quite a few dogs that we know. Pre-loading your dog with electrolytes can help prevent this from happening, but always be observant of your dogs in the pool (or hose, sprinkler, etc), especially if they are prone to swallowing water as they swim.
We are all looking forward to our next practice all together as a group. Although being geographically separated is annoying most of the time, when we do get together, it is always cool to see how much some of our dogs have improved since the last time we saw them.
Thanks for the pointers on water toxicity.
ReplyDeleteWe swim our dogs almost every day, and they
tend to swim themselves on the off days.
Impulse and Dare are water drinkers, they
will be so full of water that they just lay
down and slosh. I really don't know why some
dogs are drinkers and others are not.
Does anyone know if there is a way to make
them stop drinking?
Another question, does salt water cause them
to not want to drink fifty gallons of water?
Most of the dogs that I have seen take in too much water don't necessarily do it voluntarily, like they are thirsty. Either they like biting at their own splashes from swimming, waves at the beach, or, as is the case with one of my dogs, retrieving a toy from the water causes them to swim with their mouth open, and any water that goes into their mouth is swallowed.
ReplyDeleteWater toxicity seems to be a much more frequent occurrence with fresh water than salt water. Personally, I have never heard of it happening to a dog in salt water (which is not to say that it can't happen there too... also there is hypernatremia -- salt poisoning -- to watch out for at the beach).
Whenever my dogs have run at the beach, even if they have swallowed a lot of salt water, they are always thirsty for fresh water when we get to the car. I haven't seen many dogs that WANT to drink the salt water.