All Better (for) Now & The Asbury Visit!

Echo's Coccidiosis cleared up before the weekend and pretty much one day after starving and giving him the first dose of the med's. So we're pretty sure that's what he had, but we still don't know how he got it?

Adrienne, Dennis and the kids came over Friday afternoon for the night for a nice visit before they left for their 'northern tour'. It was a really nice visit but, as it often is, was too short! Even though they were in the area for a week, we only saw them a few times. I guess that's what you get when your family is spread out as ours is. Marnier and Echo played a lot and even rested together! I think Adrienne got some pics of that and it wasn't even set up by their owners at all! ;) We may try and see them again once more before they leave for Montreal, then home when they come back this way to stay with Teresa and Branko this weekend.

Anyway, after Thursday and Friday went without the runs we were pretty confident that he was getting better, so we took advantage of the offer from Carey and Chris to go up to their cottage for the weekend! Ahh, to have a cottage.... I would LOVE that! They have it good. Right on the water near Grand Bend and only 1.5 hours away and best of all, OPPOSITE from Toronto! It's a small little thing, but it's a cottage and has the cottage feel, unlike some of their neighbours who ripped down the old places and built year-round monsters. The only thing I don't like about the area, if I lived there, is that most of the places are being bought up by American's. Why are they so loud and obnoxious? Well I suppose that if the opportunity came along, I would love it anyway, American's and all...
I had plans this weekend to get Echo in the water to see if he would sink or swim. A few weeks ago we asked Danielle if Dane's swim and she explained that her dog's LOVE to swim which kind of shocked us both because they're so big - you'd think they would just sink?
So I took him down to the water and started to walk in and Echo followed no problem. The water has a really gradual slope down - You could walk 100 yards and still be only hip deep. I thought to myself, there's no way he's going to go in right away no problem, but he kept on following me - until he got to about his shoulders/belly, then he was like, What the...! and started jumping backwards tugging on his leash and pulling me back. It was too funny. So I got out with him and then tried again. He'd follow but stop and want to go back, but if I kept low with him and encouraged him along he went out a long way... before he even knew it he was swimming. A natural! But it didn't last long. He started to whimper and shake and he wanted to go back even though I was right beside him. It was a good start to what I hope he'll be more comfortable with as he gets older.
The next day we headed to a nearby beach to see if he'd go in again - he did no problem, but I think he only did because all 6 of us were going in. This time the water got deeper a little quicker and as we kept walking out you could see the point at which his walking turned into swimming. It was pretty cool - he's a total natural! He swam around for a long time, but I don't think he really liked it. After a while he'd whimper and shake a little so marn took him back to shallower parts and just sat with him in there.

I also wanted to take him out in the canoe with me to see how he'd react. For the most part he just sat there and looked around until we got closer to shore again. I'm not sure what he was thinking but it seemed like he thought he could just step out at one point because that's exactly what he did! His front legs stepped out and he kind of freaked out and was hanging there with his front in the water thrashing around and back end in the boat trying to get back in. He finally gave in or I pushed him, I can't remember, and he went for a nose dive into the lake, came up and "bolted" for the shore. That was some quick doggy paddling! So Marn's like "get in there and get him!" (he was doing fine, but who knows?) So I jump in to get Echo and toss Marnie out in the process, who in turn looses one flip flop in the muck below, freaks out because of the muck between the toes and jumps back in the canoe! I guided Echo back to shore and as soon as he could touch the bottom started running as fast as he could to get out. That picture Carey took from the shore is him running back out... too funny. Marn's mad because we lost one of her favourite flip flop's during the whole escapade...