Doggie Dive '08

This weekend we went to a really fun event called "Doggie Dive". It was a fundraiser for the Southwest Washington Humane Society. It took place at the outdoor pool area of a local Athletic Club. There was even a small pool for the little dogs (the kiddie pool), and a big pool for the bigger dogs (the Olympic-sized pool). The donation was $10 per dog and was basically a free swim from 10am-2pm. There were all sorts of dogs there enjoying a good swim in the pools. At first we weren't sure if Tank would even get in the pool. He LOVES going to the beach and swimming in the ocean, but he's never been in a swimming pool before. As you can see from the photos, he loved it! (Unfortunately, we forgot our camera, so we are buying some photos from one of the photographers that was there. These photos are from her site. Check out the link to her site below.)

Here are some pics of other dogs that were there too. Look at this little guy in his little life jacket! Too cute. There were some big dogs there with life jackets too, but Tank doesn't need one. He's a great swimmer.

Below is another cute pup. It was mostly labs and golden retrievers there, so the pool was filled with a ton of tennis balls for them to fetch.


Tank could really care less about tennis balls, the only thing he will swim for is a long floaty toy that is easy to grab. He loves the red one that we have for him (in photo below), but he'll also fetch sticks and training batons.




Are you are wondering how Tank and the other dogs were able to get in and out of the pools? Fortunately, since the people at the Humane Society have put on this event before, they had solved this problem. There were a couple of floating ramps that were made of 2 wooden pallets nailed together (to increase their length), and a rough carpet was attached to the top of the pallets to create traction.

When the dogs stepped onto the ramp, it would start to dip into the pool, allowing them to ease off of it if they wanted to (or get dunked, as this husky is here); however, most dogs just jumped in. The ramp was really there to help them get out. They could swim back to the ramp, and put their weight on the end of it, to dip it into the pool and pull themselves up onto it. Then they would just walk off onto the cement. It was ingenious!


The ramps always stayed where they were because the underneath side of it hooked onto the edge of the pool. At first Tank was unsure about the ramp, but eventually he was jumping in and fetching his favorite red floaty toy and swimming back and forth from side to side.

Check out him swimming and leaping and just having a great time.



He swam for about 1-hour straight before he started getting tired.





Swimming is such a great low-impact excercise for dogs. And we know that Tank really misses the beach!




Here's another picure of him leaping off the edge of the pool. You can see the floating ramp to the left of the waterslide.


(Photos were taken by MollyDill: http://www.mollydillphotography.com)