Beau's Perspective: Dodging Loud Floaties

W oof! I love to swim in my lake and usually get to go out every day – even when the white stuff is on the ground and the water is super cold. My daily swim starts with a running start and a leap off the dock. Woof, that feels good! Then, my two-leggers throw my favorite toy – my Red Stick that Mr. Randy and Ms. Jaime bought for me. I swim out, grab my Red Stick, climb up the steps, race back out onto the dock and then we do it all over again! It’s Lab heaven!

However, when the cold water and the cold air go away, we have more and more floaties on the lake. They can be very loud and the two-leggers inside are all hootin’ and hollering and there are often dogs barking and loud sounds like two-leggers pretending to be hound dogs. Often, the loud floaties are even dragging a two-legger on- a long leash. Two-leggers can be crazy, ya know.

Sometimes the floatie things get very close to our dock and that makes my pack-mom and pack-dad get scaredy smells. One time I was swimming near my dock and a big loud floatie came out of nowhere and almost ran over me. My pack-dad started yelling and screaming. (I thought he was mad at me at first!) Then I saw him yelling and screaming at the loud floatie.

Ever since then, when there are lots of loud floaties in the water, I have to wear this funny jacket thing. We also have our own loud floatie and I like to ride in it with my two-leggers. It’s fun and I love the feeling of the wind in my face. Sometimes they take me in the floatie and we stop somewhere and turn off the noise in our floaty thing. We often have treats and sometimes go for a swim.

When we do, they always put on my funny jacket when I am swimming around the floatie. Then when I get close to the ladder they are able to use my funny jacket thing to lift me back into the boat. It’s kind of cool and I feel like I’m flying for just a minute as I lift up out of the water and onto the floatie thing.

At the end of the day, I don’t mind wearing the funny jacket. My pack-family seems to like it when I do and it means I get to swim even more. By the way, all you two-leggers driving your floatie things, please look out for us pups in the water.