You can lead a husky to water, but you can’t make him swim. Ever since we adopted Roli, he has loved going in the water, but would only swim a little. As soon as he started floating, he would get scared and return to where he could touch bottom. Trish and I have been trying to get him to swim more. It’s great exercise for him and allows us to swim a bit more as well.

Trying to pull him gently into deeper water with a leash only increased his resistance. Luckily, we stumbled onto a solution at the Saco River. We persuaded him to jump off a shallow ledge into deeper water then swim to shore. He liked it enough that he would do little laps – jump off the ledge, swim to shore, walk back through the shallows and do it again. To reinforce his swimming, we praised him exuberantly.

After that, we started luring him with sticks into deeper water at the lake. He loves chasing sticks and started swimming a few feet to get the stick and then turned around to swim back towards shore. Just like at the Saco, we praised him exuberantly and he did it over and over again.

After a couple of weeks of river and lake adventures, Roli surprised us one day and swam out on his own. Now he swims further than we ever expected. Gradually expanding his comfort zone turned him into a swimming champ!

What seemingly insurmountable fear could you overcome with patience and perseverance?