Monday, July 14, 2008

Pooooooo, pooooooo, peeeeaaas

Contradictory to what you might think, this was NOT Cooper announcing he had pooped or peed. This was Cooper begging to get in the pool. The letter L does not currently exist for for him. We have an inground pool, and I finally got the chemical balance right, so the water cleared and it stopped looking like either a weak cup of coffee or later, antifreeze. That is a scary color for pool water, florenscent green.

Anyway, I figured we had a 50/50 shot at Cooper liking the big pool. He loves all other forms of water, but the big pool is, well, big. At least much bigger than he is. Last summer he was less than thrilled by it, so I wasn't sure what we would get. I put him on the first step of the pool, (these are what is refered to as "wedding cake steps" as they resemble a wedding cake and make walking in and out of a pool easy) and he boldy stepped down to the next step, which put the water at around his chest. The next step would have put him under the water, but he knew that somehow, grabbed onto my hands, and with the strength of an Olympic gymnast and pulled up to keep himself above water. I am constantly surprised by how strong he is.

The end result of all of this is he LOVES the big pool. We have a blow up boat, one of the First Step series that he can ride in and honk the horn, but he gets impatient with that quickly and wants to be with me, in the water. Even as he is turning blue and shivering, he insists "nonononono" he does not want to get out. I don't think we will invest in swim lessons this year, but next year we will probably check out what the Y has to offer. I don't feel that I have the skills to do it myself. Since he can't even get into the back yard without our assistance, I feel confident he won't end up in the pool by accident. And the good news is he is proving to be smarter than any of the dogs - another surprise I know. He figured out how to crawl up and out of the pool by the steps. None of the dogs can figure that out. We felt compelled to try and train them to get out of the pool, in case one fell in. Any time we bring a dog into the pool and let go, even if one of us is standing at the steps calling him, the dog goes for the wall. Which makes it impossible to get out. All of them could walk right out of the pool if they went to the steps, but no, they will all swim for the wall, and flail about. Sigh.

Poncho, our little black schnauzer, did fall in last year. He misjudged the distance from the end of the steps off the deck to the edge of the pool, had too much momentum and ran right in. He was two feet from the steps, but flailed at the edge of the pool trying to drown til Bob pulled him out. We wouldn't have known except our neighbor was in his back yard and saw it happen. He called to us and we went to investigate. Silly schnauzer.

We will be getting a pool alarm too. It is hard to know which one is the right one though. I don't need it going off every time a chipmunk losing his balance trying to get a drink. Not that I don't want to save them, but I don't need to freak out when it happens. Sounds like an internet search is in order.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Adult supervision is the primary form of protection, but it is not enough.

Please check out these sites and they will give you more info.

All-Safe is the best in this business!!

www.allsafepool.com
www.allsafepoolalarms.com

Thanks,
Joe

mkosboth said...

Hey - thanks random Joe dude!

Unknown said...

Glad to contribute it. I hope that you had a chance to get educated and get an alarm or safety barrier from All-Safe.

www.allsafepool.com
www.all-safe-pool-alarms.com

Joe

Росен said...

Pool alarms are really good idea and absolutely necessary. Few days ago I found really good site about them. You can check it: : http://www.alarmesdepiscines.com
Good luck all.