aqua hound comes of age

Rowlf now knows he can swim. We took him and Rumpole to Clontarf today. Clontarf is a posh suburb with a small inner-harbour beach leading to a shallow, sandy bit of sea floor. And it is an off-lead area for dogs that attracts quite a crowd of owners who want their pooches to swim. After a couple of slow starts at Tunks Park we thought the gentle slope and number of other houds would encourage little fella to swim. That, and me wading out until the water became about knee deep did the trick. Along with a rottweiler and a staffie the boys ran, galloped and then had to swim after me. Rowlf took to it like a...well, like an Irish Water Spaniel to water. I stopped to allow him to swim over and he tried to scramble up my legs (ouch) but spent more time swimming between my legs. He and Rumpole headed back to shore, then cam back in, out, in, out in, out and then Sal and I had a celebratory coffee while the dogs dried off in the sun.

Afer our coffee we headed back past the waterfront and towards the car. Both Rowlf and Rumpole did their best to bolt for the water again, so we let them off their leads and they both scramble-slid down a wall and back into the water where for a while they swam along with us as we walked above on the path. Damn cute. A couple of times they both managed to scramble back to the top of the small but near vertical embankment we were walking along the top of and a couple of times they decided it was more fun in the water.

So there you go; we are now the proud owners of two aqua-hounds.