Gizmo learnt to swim!

[jayeless]

This here is Gizmo. He's five years old, going on six, and he's a Maltese/Shihtzu cross. Before I moved out of home, I'd have called him “my dog”; now I don't live there I usually call him my parents' dog, even though obviously I still love him just as much, and I guess he's more of a family dog.

Every week, my parents and sister come to visit me (as well as my partner and cat) in the flat where I live now. We take Gizmo on a walk down to the beach (since I'm lucky enough to live only ten minutes away!) – there is a dog beach section and a clifftop path with lots of shrubs that rats love to live in, so Gizmo has a blast.

Since summer arrived, Gizmo has definitely been more daring about going into the water than he was before. He'll walk right in and “flop” so his paws, belly, and body generally up to and over the shoulders gets a nice soaking. Yesterday, though, was definitely a much hotter than usual day (the max was 38°, although it had cooled a bit by our walk) so the rest of us had put bathers on underneath loose clothes so we could all go for a swim. And that's exactly what we did do, which meant that Gizmo had to find a way to join us. He walked out into the water and tried a number of times to find a sand bank or something which would mean he'd be able to wade all the way out… with no luck. So he took the plunge, and just started swimming! He made it to my dad, who was floating in the water, and immediately decided to climb on him like an island, haha. But, having established he could do it, he was cooked. He swam back to shore, and then started swimming loops around the water, greeting everybody briefly before making it back to dry land. He was like a toddler who's just learned a new skill and now has to do it constantly to demonstrate proudly to everyone in the whole world that they know what to do. So cute. (And also, back on shore, he was able to play chasey with some other friendly dogs at the dog beach, so basically Gizmo's day was made in two ways at once.)

Sadly I don't have any photos or videos of him swimming, because y'know… I didn't have any pockets in my bathers to stuff a phone into, and mine's not waterproof anyway. But STILL. I had to commemorate this landmark day in Gizmo's life. Don't let them say you can't teach an old dog new tricks…