Deeg Posted January 25, 2004 Posted January 25, 2004 My older Labrador/Pointer mix is afraid of water. He hates bathes and wont drink water if people are in the area. Is there any way to cure this? Quote
KP Posted January 26, 2004 Posted January 26, 2004 What I did was just desensitize. I took my dog in the bathroom with me everytime I took a shower. I brought treats and tossed them to her while I was in so that she got used to the bathroom. From there I moved up. I would put her in the tub everyday. I spread peanut butter around the sides...then moved up to doing this with the water on. I'd try to make her sit without putting water on her. I did this a little bit each day. Made sure I praised her a lot and wouldn't let her out. Just kept making her sit. Still had treats and peanut butter. Eventually when she was fine with that I'd put water on her starting from the feet slowly working the way up. Stayed away from her head and just used my hands to clean around her head. Some dogs are more tolerant of what they will go through than others. Mine was pretty easy. You don't have to go as slow as I did with mine but as long as you do it often he eventually will get over it and find that he will be ok. Make it a completely pleasant experience. No yelling. Happy voices no matter what. He may not ever like it but he will learn eventually through desensitizing that it won't take long and its not going to kill him. Just work it a little bit each day. Quote
Deeg Posted January 31, 2004 Author Posted January 31, 2004 He is fine when he is near the water with certain people (my father and me). but when around other people he becomes nerves and stressed. He is fine when he is in the bathroom with me or in the kitchen when I'm doing dishes, but he won't go in there if someone else is in there. He is 11 years old and we have had him since he was about 3 months old. He didn't start this until he was about 3 years old and we got another dog. I'll try slowly putting water on him, but do you or anyone else know why this suddenly started? My dad would take him down to a nearby pond once or twice a week and one week he was fine and everything went normally, but the next week he wouldn't go in. Quote
kendalyn Posted January 31, 2004 Posted January 31, 2004 So this has been a problem for 8 years? He's 11, I would just let him enjoy being an old dog. Why try to fix it now when it's been going on so long? Is there some reason you want him to like the water? Quote
Deeg Posted February 14, 2004 Author Posted February 14, 2004 We do a lot of things around water and it would be nice to be able to take him with us. He digs and when he is upset or bored he tries to dig out of the yard, so when we leave, he has to stay in a kennel and he doesn't enjoy it. I was just wondering if there was some way to get him used to it so that when we go to the beach or go boating, he can come. Maybe not get into the water, but be comfortable enough around water to go onto a boat or near the water on the beach. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.