Young dog crossing water

Play and enjoy the water with your dog. Expecially when they are young. Don't scare them or make it a dramatic experience for them. The idea is to get them to enjoy the water. The more comfortable they are with it the more relaxed they are with it. The more relaxed they are in water the better they will swim. A panicked dog will often bring its feet all the way out of the water and not be as effective with its efforts to swim. If they don't swim well, and are frightened in their efforts of flailing about, they will associate the water with bad experience and be apprehensive about it next time. You can boot the dog in, throw it in, etc but you have just give the dog a tramatic experience associated with the water. You can make it an enjoyable experience or a tramatic one or do nothing. To just wish certain skills upon a dog that they don't take to naturally from birth yeilds little results.