Big stick adventures

A few days ago Scamp found this stick.

With which she hopped over this log.

And then kept carrying it.

She got it most of the way back to the car

So I picked it up and we took it with us.

Today we took it down to the river. I was curious if she would fetch it out of the water. She did, a few times, as long as she could just wade out to it. So I tossed it further out. She’d swim out to it, but then didn’t quite seem to know what to do to get it back to shore. But she kept going in after it. The tide was coming in, so there was a fairly strong uphill current, and the stick kept drifting further out and “upstream”. I think she could see it from shore, knew it was out there somewhere, but would lose track of it once she was in the water. The stick is a ways to her left in this picture.

I tried wading out to fish it out myself a few times, but eventually pretty much gave it up for lost. She, however, kept swimming out, far enough to make me nervous a time or two. I wasn’t sure if she was still after the stick, or just enjoying swimming.

Whichever it was, it’s clear she’s not nervous about swimming where the current isn’t too strong, anyway. She was going in entirely on her own initiative, no other dogs around or anything.

The stick drifted in to shore a bit later, so I was able to wade in to retrieve it. It’s now hidden in the bushes above the current high-water line in anticipation of future fun.