Does anyone have experience introducing a dog to canoeing?

I have a new 3-year old female German shepherd that I'd like to take
on short canoe trips.

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 15:50:09 GMT, ExPatBrit wrote:

Does anyone have experience introducing a dog to canoeing?

I have a new 3-year old female German shepherd that I'd like to take
on short canoe trips.

Every dog I know loves it in a canoe and jumps form canoe to canoe
it's great fun

John O'Connell

Wood burning camp stoves
Web page www.occuk.co.uk/outdoor

On 15-Sep-2003, Kay Levesque wrote:

She's an Australian shepherd and
so she got nervous when the group got too spread out.

You have to convince her that shepherding canoes is not part of her breeding!
:-)

Mike

There are different sizes...natch. What works on a Rottweiler
wouldn't work on a chihuahua.

My neighbor has two dogs, both of whom love the water. One is a
Rottweiler, an extremely strong swimmer who loves current and will
swim until you drag her out. The other is an English bulldog with
zero buoyancy. Rottie doesn't have a PFD and doesn't need one;
bulldog got one early this summer and has been happy as a clam ever
since. Oddly enough, he really took to rafting, too. The thing
about dogs and boats is it's just like kids and boats: you have to
be prepared for any range of reaction from love at first site to
hate-it-won't-get-in-it. If they hate it, there's really nothing
more to be said: that one's staying on shore, and that's all she
wrote. It's really hard to predict what dogs will take to boating:
I've known strong swimming breeds who hated it and aquatically
challenged ones, like this bulldog, that couldn't get enough of it.
All you can do is try it and see how it goes.

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Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield,
Other days you're the bug.

my dog was too restless as a pup. he'd jump out and swim to shore whenever
we got close to land. he was okay when he was quite old. he seemed ot
enjoy it a times. often he looked bored. I put a foam pad on the bottom to
provide traction and a dry bed.

for canine PFD's you'll problably find more at sailboat stores than
paddling stores. people take dogs on sailboats although its not
recommended. poor dogs. we never used a canine PFD for our afternoon
paddles. he only fell out a couple times. we had to go ashore for him to
get back in. lifting a 54 lb dog with the added weight of a coat full of
water back into the small boat was not possible. if you do plan to take a
dog I'd suggest figuring a way to get her back into the boat.

in the old days natives would transport their dogs by canoe like
everything else but that was not for recreation and I don't know if either
the dogs or the natives got much pleasure out of it. I have a book here
with a photo taken in 1989 of a native trapper with his dog and his
snowmobile in his canoe and an outboard motor on the back pushing them
along. a canoe trip is what you make of it.

ExPatBrit ) writes:
Does anyone have experience introducing a dog to canoeing?

I have a new 3-year old female German shepherd that I'd like to take
on short canoe trips.


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Teach it to sit and stay first. When I first took my lab canoeing, he tried
jumping from the boat to the shore and flipped us both. While I was empting
the boat, he was rolling in poison oak.. He now is an experienced boater and
well aware of canoe balance and is a good boating partner.
"ExPatBrit" wrote in message
...
Does anyone have experience introducing a dog to canoeing?

I have a new 3-year old female German shepherd that I'd like to take
on short canoe trips.