Do Border collies like to swim?

[NorthfieldNick]

I puzzled over this for a few minutes - chickens swim? Buddy herds chickens?

 

Time for that second cup of coffee!

 

We have a hen with an identity crises: she wades in the bird bath. I'm fairly certain she thinks she's a duck. None of our other chickens have ever even thought about going in the water, just this crazy hen.

[Gideon's girl]

When laying hens are egg bound, you float them in warm water. They float like a duck, but no webbing on the feet means they're not so good at swimming. However, I hope "chicken" was referring to the scared dog, not a swimming bird.

[Alchemist]

I used to think that Border collies, as a breed, didn't enjoy swimming. This was based on my experience (as a teenager) with a Border collie that we lured into our swimming pool. (He did not enjoy the experience, and it was impossible to lure him in subsequently).

 

Next Border collie I owned: tried to lure her into a stream, hauling her in to show her it wasn't that bad: she decided streams were scary. Dug in her heels thereafter.

 

Fast forward (many years) to the next Border collie: let him work at his own pace. Don't pressure him to swim, but let him get into water as deep as he's willing on his own. He certainly didn't have the interest his "best friend" (a GSD puppy) had in a kiddie pool. As a puppy, deep water was scary; he needed to know all his feet could bear his weight at all times. Taking him to a hydrotherapy pool (where he was wearing a floatation vest) didn't make him any more comfortable with swimming at all. But by the time he was a year old, his desire to fetch objects was so strong that he discovered (on his own) that it was, indeed, possible to swim. From that moment he's never looked backwards. Total water rat.

 

Slow and steady wins the race.