First swim of the season - and a beaver tale

The tiny speck is Tristan doing his first swim of the season. It was definitely his choice, not mine. It's been so cold but today was practically balmy at 56 degrees. Tristan spotted a bird and off he went to investigate.

Tristan was banned from this area by me late last fall after he had a marathon session with a beaver. At dusk, two and sometimes three, beavers would swim out for what looked like their evening constitutional. One evening Tristan swam out to meet and greet. At first it was fun to watch their antics. Tristan would determinedly swim after the beaver and when he got too close, the beaver would thwack his tail, do a flip to dive and pop up in a different spot about 20 feet away. Tristan was quite befuddled but when he spied the beaver again, the merry chase was on anew.

It was fun to watch but as it got darker, I called Tristan in. Nope, not gonna to come. I was furious and then frantic as it became completely dark and Tristan wouldn't respond. I couldn't see him and all I could hear was intermittent thwacks as the two parried. I tried everything: bellowing "come", turning on the car lights, starting up the vehicle and driving along the pier hoping Tristan would fear I was leaving and so come in. Visions of disasters played out in my mind. What if the beaver tired of the chase and really felt threatened? Would he bite Tristan with his huge bucky teeth? What if Tristan swam too far out and couldn't get back in? How could I even attempt to help him if I couldn't see where he was? Tristan was in the water for at least an hour and half of that time it was pitch dark. It was a nightmare. Finally, finally he came back in.

We haven't been back until today - in the afternoon, with no beaver visitors in sight, no beaver chewed limbs as evidence of their presence and after lots of work on the come command. I certainly learned a lesson in prey drive. I beat myself up a lot over the incident. Since then I've spoken with several very competent GSD owner/handlers who have stories about their own dogs blowing them off while in high prey drive so I feel a bit better.

Today Tristan came when called. Admittedly, I cowardly waited until the bird flew off for good before calling Tristan in. I didn't want to test Tristan and have him fail but I do continue to work with him in controlled situations.