Our Blog - First CaniPaddle lesson, Toulouse, France
What is CaniPaddle? It is Paddle board with your dog! Our dog school had a session last year but we opted to not take it. This year, when they put it on the schedule again in July, we decided to try it. Lucy has gotten more used to water and will go swimming in lakes and rivers, so we thought we would try this new activity. We decided to invest in a better life jacket for her and signed up!
Interesting thing for me is that the paddle boards were actually inflatable ones. I had never seen an inflatable one before but, sure enough, you can buy them easily on Amazon.com, so perhaps I just haven't been around enough paddle boards. And from that last statement, you can probably tell that I (personally) have also never tried to paddle board (with or without a dog). So this was a first for both of us.
As you can tell from these pictures and the 1 video ... we never got very far off-shore. Lucy seemed to be at-ease on the board as long as I was constantly feeding her treats. Hopefully the next session, she will maybe let me actually paddle a little bit. I may try with my feet up (like our friend Tine did) or kneeling (like another person did). As soon as I attempted to paddle, I pretty much went in circles instead of going straight, which I think had to do with the angle of the paddle in the water.
Here is a picture that our friend Tine took of Maiko (the Pomeranian in the foreground) and Tom with Lucy in her new Outward Hound life jacket. And then another one that we took with them together.
Lucy didn't seem to have much problem getting onto the paddle board with me, here you can see us getting some final tips from the instructor, Jason. And then Tom trying to help as she decided to get back off.
I apologize for the video (you will understand while you are watching) ... but it is the only video that I have of me with Lucy during this first Paddle session.