Teaching A Greek Dog to Swim: Hela's Adventures

Hi, I’m Dr. Maja! Read my introduction to learn more about me and my two crossbreed dogs, Lava and Hela.

So, as a dog born and raised on the beautiful island of Kefalonia in Greece, you would think that swimming would come so easily to Hela. Well, things are not always as they seem. After meeting Hela for the first time last spring and then seeing her clumsy attempts at staying afloat this summer, it became obvious that during her time in Greece, she probably had no idea she was actually living on an island and had never been in the water. But she is an adventurer at heart and will try most things at least once.

Shouldn’t All Dogs Know How to Swim?

Swimming comes so naturally to many dog breeds that it’s easy to forget that not all are such great or enthusiastic swimmers. With Hela being a presumed Hungarian Viszla cross, based on her looks, endless drive, energy levels, and my modest vet guessing, I expected her to be thrilled on her first encounter with a nearby lake. However, she was more interested in all the sounds made by the frogs, while insisting on finding each and every one. Luckily, she didn’t get any at all. But she also showed no intention to get into the water any deeper than her wrists and ankles for the first few times. I was quite disappointed.

Learning From Lava’s Example

Luckily, my other dog Lava loves swimming, which also took her almost two years to realize. Lava will swim reasonably far, thinking she can actually catch a duck that’s miles away, but I wouldn’t want to burst her bubble. Anyway, Hela has now had several opportunities to learn from observing Lava swim with confidence and ease, but it still took her one year to actually try it out for herself, and it was anything but graceful. Truthfully, it wasn’t something I would proudly share on social media, but it was very entertaining to watch and still makes me smile.

It’s Hard Not to Laugh

Well, it was a sight for sore eyes and an instant mood lifter. Alongside Lava, who was swimming gracefully and sliding across a still lake, there was Hela, doing something between swimming and jumping, making her way through the reeds. She was also trying to shake her head at the same time, as clearly she hadn’t yet figured out how not to get water in her ears. She was on the lead, so I was ready to pull her out if she got stuck, but the sight was too funny to interfere, and she seemed to have it under control. At least I hoped so.

Luckily, Hela Has Turned to Other Hobbies

It seemed that Hela herself was aware that swimming was not her strong suit, and she quickly turned to her other favorite activities. One of them is digging, and she is just amazing at this. Unfortunately. All my efforts of keeping the grass looking tidy were in vain. Every day, there is another hole, and it’s great when there's only one. Besides digging, Hela is also great at finding all the stinky and rotten wild animal leftovers, many of unrecognizable origin, and eating them in the blink of an eye, as well as locating voles and rodents. She is so proficient at this that I can’t even let her dig for more than 30 seconds, as I know she will dig something up.

There’s Always Hope

We went back to the lake several times over the summer, with unchanging results. Hela was running and jumping through the water, while Lava was attempting to chase ducks. I tried my best to pretend neither of the two dogs was mine, which was especially hard when a group of local fishermen looked at us with very serious facial expressions. Hats off to them for staying so cool when looking at the three of us. Must have been a sight! Despite Hela clearly not being a talented swimmer, or any type of swimmer for that matter, I continued taking her to the lake. Seeing her run around happily, stumping through the water and looking for frogs, was enough of a reason.