Barley our third Golden Retriever was a true water baby but, we never knew she had freestyle high diving talents till one day in the Cairngorms!
If there was water near at hand Barley wanted to be in it.
We had gone on holiday with our 3 Golden Retrievers Fern, Barley and Jane to a place near Coylumbridge in the Cairngorm near Aviemore. It was fantastic for the dogs with pine forests all round us to run in and loads of lochs and burns to swim in.
We gone for a walk from Loch Morlich up the side of the Allt Mor burn to the start of the ski slopes. Barley was in her element in and out of the burn.
When we came back down from the hill we were walking along the side of the burn and getting close to where it flows in to Loch Morlich.
Barley was just in front and clearly intent on getting back in the water.
At this point the burn is slow flowing and has deep pools with high banks either side.
Barley was leaning over peering down at the crystal clear water some 6 feet below her when the bank edge crumbled under her!
I have to say she’s was an impressive freestyle diver! She went in to the water head first like a dart heading towards the bottom of the deep pool!
Our inital OMG hope she hasn’t hurt herself very quickly turned to eye watering laughter. When her decent below the surface ended she twisted round and struck out for the surface and came bursting through looking totally confused!
With no way out of the water due to the vertical nature of the bank she was looking very sorry for herself as she swam around looking for a way out. Fortunately as we were close to the loch the bank was starting to slop down to loch shore level so we walked along with her swimming bellow us till she found shallow water and was able to get herself back on to dry land.
Happily her adventure didn’t adversely affect her love for getting in water she continued to be the “Golden Retriever Water Baby”
Off all her antics it was probably the funniest and just a shame we didn’t have a video camera to capture it.
