Darn Ducks

So, Drake and I had another encounter with the ducks, and this one was a lot scarier. The first one, I was scared that Drake would catch a duckling and chomp chomp chomp. This time, I was getting ready for a little mouth to snout resuscitation.

You see, we went to the lake, like we have every day for the past two weeks. For those of you watching the weather here in the northwest, that means there's been some swimming in 50 degree weather after nights in the 40s, in a steady rain. In fact, the guy making my sandwich today asked, "So how's your day going?"

"Pretty good," I answered. "I took the dog swimming at noon."

"Dogs are amazing," he said. "They can tolerate such cold water. They go swimming when we wouldn't even think about it."

"Um, I went with him."

"Dear God!"

But I digress.

In any case, we went back to the same beach, and I made loud noises to scare away Momma Duck. She was nowhere to be seen, and I thought we were fine. We started throwing and retrieving the ball…and some other ducks showed up.

If the first batch were "Aw shucks ain't that cute" ducklings, these were the "Let's stick our beaks in here and see what happens" teenage boys of ducks. For example, when I clapped my hands at Momma Duck, she and the ducklings paddled away as fast as possible. When I clapped my hands at these half-grown ducks, they swim fluttered towards me, to see what the loud noises were. Shouts of "Get away you stupid ducks!" rolled off their backs like…and I was surprised to see that they went after tennis balls.

And when they did, Drake swam after them. He almost got them, and there was no kidding around like Momma Duck had done. They weren't going slowly to tease him, they mistimed the leap, and they almost died.

Cue the revenge of the ducks. They swam straight out from shore. So did Drake.

They swam farther, until they were barely visible. So did Drake.

They got out to the navigation buoys, far beyond where I usually went. So did Drake.

I was yelling after them, promising Drake all kinds of treats, and eventually, he gave up and let the ducks escape. He made this sloooow turn around, and by this time he was flailing. Remember, he's not a lab. He's a pit pull, about as buoyant as a brick, and he's only been swimming for about two and a half weeks. His endurance is still pretty low. So I'm wading out towards him, in the freaking rain and freaking chilly lake, waving my arms.

The first time he went swimming, he got this panicked look when he turned around and saw how far away the shore was. He was about three times that far out today, and he got that same look.

He swam past a lone piling, the only remnant of an old dock. He tried to clamp on with his jaws for a rest, but couldn't get a grip.

So he swam for me, wheezing and blowing, and churning away. And he made it.

He wouldn’t have drowned—I was ready to swim after him—but I was pretty sure he was going under. And I was wrong, and he wasn't worried at all. Once he got back to shore. But he was so cold he was shivering, and he was exhausted.

Darn ducks.