Sandy Beach: February 2012

(Note: No camera was used in the making of this blog post.)

Picture it.

A sunny Sunday at the river, and the swimming club is well into the race program.

The race is 50 metres, and the competitors are six of our fastest teenage swimmers.

The swimmers have just hit the water when Milo, a labrador kelpie cross, happens to be passing by on the shore. He recognises Hannah, one of the competitors. She is his very dear friend.

In fact, Milo had once belonged to Hannah, but circumstances changed and he had moved on to another family who lived nearby.

He sees Hannah out there in the middle of the river, out of her depth and splashing arms and legs. Does she need rescuing?

Being a noble breed of dog, he gives no thought to his own personal safety. On all fours, he leaps into the river and swims out to the lane ropes. Hannah is in the outside lane, and Milo makes it his business to join her, and let her know that the bond between them is as strong as ever - and does she need rescueing?

Once inside the lane, he proves to be an excellent swimmer and would have won the race if he had swum in a straight line and been given an official handicap.

His rescue style is to swim head-first into Hannah, mouth open, tongue dangling and no doubt wagging his tail – although you could not see that under the water. Having bumped aside Hannah mid-lane, he then decides that all the other swimmers need his attention. He dodges and weaves through the lane ropes and surprises oncoming swimmers with a hearty grin at close range and face level.

He dog-paddles (yep!) in the finest tradition of dogginess, staying head-high in water way out of his depth.

The race ends in disarray, and Milo swims from swimmer to swimmer to ensure that he does not have to rescue them.

He leaves after the race, upon reading the sign “No swimming of dogs’.

Afterword (1):

Dogs have been ignoring the 'No swimming of dogs' ever since the sign was erected.

Betty and Val remember another dog - many years ago - that was a keen swimmer. The dog was small, but his race of choice was big - the length (356 yards) of the baths.

He would start the race with his owner and clock a respectable time for his size and weight, beating many of his human counterparts to the finish.

Afterword (2):

And speaking of non-human swimmers: Betty remembers the incident of the fish.

The river abounds with mullet. They often leap from the water, for reasons the scientists do not know and nor do we.

As the story goes, a mullet must have swum in the lanes, mid-race, and in a leap to escape, it slammed into the hand of a passing overarm swimmer. It is hard to know who was more startled: the fish caught by hand, or the unintended fisherman who ended up with a live fish in his grip.