Last week Danger and I returned to Wildrose Colorado to polish up Danger’s water work in Clear Creek. He’s matured a lot since we made the video below, last year. But water entries have remained a problem, due mostly to the fact that I took Danger whitewater kayaking when he was four months old and scared the crap out of him. As a result, he’s prone to charging toward the water, stopping and then running up and down the bank for a few seconds before I finally persuade him to go in. Fearlessness in water is a critical skill for any gundog or adventure dog. We want our pups to love water and see swimming as high-value reward. The goal is a dog that drives straight into the drink in a controlled manner. Huge leaps are fun to watch but, as with humans diving into unknown pools, they can also lead to serious injury for the dog.

To improve Danger’s water entry, Mike had me divide the task into two steps that you’ll see in the video. First, we had him start his retrieve from a small sandbar in the middle of the creek. The sandbar eliminates bank-running by eliminating the bank. That’s called an environmental cue and it sets the dog up to succeed the same way that starting him lining along a fence does.

Second, we moved to a point of land that juts into a deep pool in the creek. The point gave Danver limited options for bank-running but, more importantly, put him a few feet above the water. As a result, he builds momentum coming down the bank which carries him into the water.

After a few of these drills, we had him going straight in off the rip-rap along a bank that ordinarily would have tripped him up.

Danger drives to the dummy

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