Beating the heat at Babb's Bridge

Meggie our foster puppy has been here for a full day, and we are madly in love with her 98 % of the time. The other 2 % may be deal breakers, but time will tell. Keeping in mind that she may never leave, it was a priority of mine to introduce her to water and teach her how to swim. I regret not doing this with Charlee and Finney when they were younger. They both like the water and they both can swim, but prefer not to.  I blame myself. Both we forced into my parents pool.


With the tempertaure  tipping the thermostat at close to 95 degrees, the question was where to take the dogs. I had seen photos of friend's dogs swimming at Shaw Park in Gorham, so after a few on line attempts to find out where it was, off we went.



In attendance were Meggie, Charlee and 5 kids. Two of mine, and three kids belonging to a good friend. We parked just after the quarry on Rt 237 in Gorham, in a little lot next to the Presumpscott River. I am still not sure if that is where we were supposed to be, but as far as the kids were concerned it was a big fat FAIL.

My 12 year old tumor toed wild child smiler.

Charlee and Meggie didn't think so. They loved it. We walked to the end of the hay field along the river and back, looking for a place to swim. The two dogs were thick as thieves and they both ran straight out. I broke my second cardinal rule of fostering and let Meggie off the leash. She didn't go anywhere and had a perfect recall (as I knew hoped she would). We broke our first foster rule earlier in the day when I had the pup snuggling on my bed for a while.

You would never know by the way the dogs ran flat out that the day was so hot if it hadn't been for the whining from the kids, but the river was to quote a middle schooler "gross". The water appeared "stagnant and slimy" and we didn't find an easy access for people, although Charlee had no problem getting in there to cool off.



We were all badly in need of a dip and middle schooler came up with the genius idea to drive a few miles to the covered bridge in Windham off River Road.

I cannot say enough superlatives about our morning. I kept both dogs on the leash, because I was watching 5 kids and 2 dogs and there is a road, although cars need to slow down to go through the bridge. The kids jumped off the rope swing, and caught frogs, and the dogs loved being in the water with us.

Meggie got a swim lesson. I picked her up and pointed her to shore.  This is a good way to teach a puppy to swim by the way. The first time, I held her body up a bit till she got the idea.

Here is her second attempt. She was a natural.

Don't these kids looks happy?

 

 

 

 I should have had them pose when we got back to the car after our first attempt at cooling off. They were so sweaty they all looked like they had already been swimming.

Charlee looks on while dumb ass teenagers jump from the top of the bridge. I was ready to call 911.