SUP Pups - Been wanting to do this for years!

Wife and I have been paddleboarding for a long time, and it always looks so cool seeing people glide by with their dogs.

We had Riley the Ridgeback, an amazing animal who loved the water, but didn't play well with other dogs, it was hard to take him to the beach 'cuz you always had to be on the lookout for other dogs. He also had trouble standing still, so not exactly a paddleboarding temperment... we'd have spent more time swimming. We also had Quincy who just wants to be close to Mom and would not have enjoyed it at all.







After Riley passed at 14 we got Diego... Super mellow Black Lab mix, loves other dogs, the dog park, dog beach.





Perfect! Yeah, not so much. Turns out we found the only Black Lab on the planet who doesn't like water.
He was a street dog in Baja and I'm wondering if maybe he got sprayed with a hose to run him off or something, he definitely had some sort of a fear thing going on.

I tried explaining to Diego that he's a Black Lab, and how much they love the water.

"Dude, you have WEBBED FEET for fucks sake!"

Nope, he wasn't having it, he didn't even like stepping on wet grass to go potty.
(It was a little embarrassing actually)

We hoped to slowly work him through it, we'd get him to go in like elbow deep but that's it.

A year or so later we adopted Sadie, another Baja street dog. Quincy was 14 at the time, he's still pretty frisky at times, but Diego LOVES to run and Q-Dawg just couldn't keep up.

Sadie and him rough house and wrestle constantly so the pack is perfect.



Except for that one thing...

Yesterday we faced some fears, and might've even had some fun!

Took a doggy paddleboarding lesson with Diego and Sadie through an outfit called SUP Pups at Liberty Station and they did SOOO good!
(Any San Diego peeps who want a paddleboarding dog, look her up, 5 stars!)

The instructor Sam is amazing and knows some tricks to get the pups on the boards and cruising. Turns out she likes it better when the dogs don't like water because then they're very motivated to stay ON the board.

After they'd been successfully cruising for a while and when we were further away from shore, she takes them onto her board.
She paddles away from you a little, and while you pat your board and call their name she dunks them off her board and then paddles away so they can't cljmb right back with her.

This is supposed to teach them that A: Water didn't kill them and B: When they swim to you they can get right back on the board.

They're naturals, we even had 'em doing board tranfers in no time and Diego was even hanging 10.

Only one who fell in was human.

Now to try it again on our own (slightly less stable) boards without an instructor.

I really hope they love it. I've seen dogs at the bay who run to get on their humans board as soon as the person carries it to the water and can't wait to get on the water.

So dang fun, bucket list checked off.

After reading the instructor's bio and reviews I had no doubts in her abilities, (Turns out she's nationally ranked in SUP racing) but I was still really surprised and proud of how well our knucklehead dogs did.

 

That's awesome! No way would my dogs stay on the board. Of course, I have a hard enough time staying on the board, and not cuz I like the water better...

Our lab LOVES the water. She literally hops in to every puddle she can find. It's like Disneyland when they neighbors flood irrigate their lawn and she can hop and roll and thrash and splash to her hearts content. Those webbed feet and otter-tail sure help when gets in the lake, too!

 

They might surprise you. Margo has been paddleboarding for years and she fell off.

Diego had been paddleboarding for about 20 minutes at that point, and when she fell he was left standing on the board by himself like "Hey, where'd Mom go?"

She uses SUP's that are HUGE. 12' X 36" wide and 6" thick, so they're really stable. (Well, unless the dog moves when you're not ready for it)

 

Well since the lesson went so well, we bought doggy lifejackets for the pups and Sunday was our first attempt at going solo.

Our hard boards are not really well suited for this (mine is touring/semi-race so not all that stable) so we opted for the inflatables.

They're considerably less volume, less stable than the "Big Bertha" boards we used in the pups lesson, but I think they'll be fine. Especially as the dogs get more used to it and start to relax.

All things considered it went pretty dang well. Except for a bit of a sunburn... apparently I &/or my wife forgotten how to apply sunscreen properly, 'cuz I had areas that were fine, and areas that were fire.

Beautiful dog day on the bay.

 

Great write ups and pictures. Thanks for sharing. Is that Mission Bay?

 

It is indeed! The first post from the dog's lesson is at Liberty Station in Point Loma, but the latest pics I just posted are Mission Bay at Bahia Point.

 

I thought it looked familiar with all of the conferences that I've attended throughout the years at the hotels there.