What a great idea. Two of my three dogs would love it! I'm lucky - we have three beaches (two on the gulf and one on Tampa Bay) that allow dogs to swim near me...but the pool idea is wonderful!
I had never heard of anything like this, but a pool in Fort Collins, CO opens itself to dog owners on the last day of the season, before draining and cleaning. My dog would be profoundly uninterested, but this looks like a blast.
What a great idea. Two of my three dogs would love it! I'm lucky - we have three beaches (two on the gulf and one on Tampa Bay) that allow dogs to swim near me...but the pool idea is wonderful!
This is soooooooooo unfair to cats.
The Labor Day dog swim is an annual event at my condo complex. A little too wild though for my chi hua huas - big dogs and tennis balls flying everywhere. It's a blast to watch though - the dogs actually seem to smile. I did manage to get my boys into my brother's pool - they would not come near me for hours and spent that time looking for a hole in the fence through which to escape their horrible momma.
Cats on my car were signing up for the Captain's Flying School.
Most cats are excellent swimmers. There is a huge difference between being able to swim and WANTING to swim. One of my mother's cats loved the water. All of the other ones she has had over the years despised water with the heat of a thousand suns. If you throw a cat in a pool it will swim, it will probably find the ledge of pool and climb out and run for its life...then it will sneak up on you and kill you in your sleep.
Almost all dogs can swim - most love it. Greyhounds have a hard time (no body fat - they have to work very hard to keep afloat) as do bassets (too much body not enough leg). My Tervuren can swim...but you need to pick all 65 lbs of him and throw him in the water to make it happen. He will never do it on his own...large muddy puddles are OK with him though. . The lab and the standard poodle will swim literally until they are dangerously exhausted (poodles are retreivers - really they are - web feet and all). I do retreiver work with both of them and they love the water - lake, river, stream, pool, Gulf of Mexico - it doesn't matter to them.
They do this at the sportsplex in Hillsborough too
I knew a guy who once threw a cat into a lake. I think his wounds healed up within a months time.