Finn, our first Golden Retriever, loved swimming. We discovered this fact when he was very young and jumped out of the canoe in the middle of Homer Lake in Illinois and had to swim for shore. After that, keeping him out of the water was impossible and so we spent many a summer weekend at the lake throwing sticks and training dummies into the water for him to retrieve.
The routine was always the same. When we pulled off the highway and onto the country road that headed to the lake, Finn would start whining knowing exactly where we were going. Pulling in the parking lot beside the boat launch and dock, he could barely sit still. I opened the truck door and just managed to get out of his way before he leaped out the cab and took off across the grass. He raced out the dock and leapt into the water, splashing anyone who happened to be close. He swam straight out, looking for something to retrieve before I’d even had a chance to throw the dummy.
If I wasn’t quick enough, and he was already passed the distance I could throw, I’d have to call to him to get him to look back to shore. With gestures eventually he would locate the dummy, which had ended up closer to shore because of my lame throw.
We assume animals come into the world knowing everything they need to know, that most of their knowledge is inborn. Certainly, swimming was like that for Finn. And yet anyone who has seen a dog experience snow for the first time knows there are workings of the world that even animals must discover through experience.
Come January of Finn’s first year, when he was about 10 months old, we went out to Homer Lake to go cross-country skiing. There wasn’t much snow, and although Finn was happy to run along the trails, the skiing was rough going and we decided to pack it in quickly. We loaded up the skis and decided to walk down to the lake to give Finn more exercise. As soon as we arrived at the parking lot, Finn took off for the dock. He raced across the snow, ran out onto the dock, leaped into the lake and landed flat, four legs splatted out in every direction on the ice. He slid about 10 feet before coming to rest.
After a moment of shock, me worrying that Finn had hurt himself and Finn trying to figure out what had happened, he finally got himself up. He shook himself, looked down at his feet, and then looked up at me. His look clearly said, “What did you do with the water?”
I called him and he started back, his feet slipping and sliding over the ice. Slowly, he seemed to get the hang of walking on the ice without falling down. After a minute, he stopped and looked around, looked out across the frozen lake to the other side. That’s when he saw them — ice fisherman. Without a backward glance at me, Finn took off running, slipping and sliding and gaining traction, as he galloped over the ice toward the men sitting peacefully beside their bored holes in the middle of the lake.
“Finn,” I yelled, but he had found something way more entertaining than me. And also, something to make up for the inability to actually swim.
A friend said to me the other day, “The thing about ice fishing, is you need to get across the ice.”
Obviously, it made me think about Finn and all the dogs I’ve had in my life. All they’ve taught me about living and loving and finding joy, and how to get across the ice life doles out. For Finn it seemed if he had to get across ice, he could always find a way to make a game out of it.
Life is beautiful and also hard. Choose your cliché, there are days that feel like you’re skating on thin ice, making your way across a minefield, or walking on eggshells. What dogs teach us, is that if the water freezes and you can’t swim, you can ice fish, or run around tormenting the ice fisherman. Whether they like it or not.
Priscilla-Berggren Thomas lives in Homer.
