You'll notice in the next picture four ducks (click the picture to see them circled in red) in the water. Jack certainly noticed them.
He tried to go after them a couple of times, but I was able to call him back without any trouble. As we walked around the perimeter of the lake (toward the outlet in the picture above, we got a little closer to the ducks. In fact, they were right about.....(click on the picture again - this was taken after the fact so the ducks are long gone in this picture).
We were down on the path you can see on the bottom of the above picture, and he took off like he was shot out of a canon. He almost stopped once as I yelled for him, but he could already taste the feathery goodness, and he kept going. I had several things run through my mind as he was barreling toward inevitability. I wondered if I was going to be able to get close enough to get him out of the water, and if I was going to get a surprise bath today as well. Mostly I wondered if I'd be dragging a dead dog out of this frigid water.
Well, by the time he realized he was on ice, it was far too late for the brakes. He planted every claw he could into the ice, and leaned back so far that he went in the water upside down and backwards. I'm glad he came up again, and didn't end up under the ice. I ran as far as I felt was safe, and kept yelling for him to come. He worked hard to get on that ice, but that was an impossible struggle. He pulled himself up onto his chest once or twice, but the ice kept braking under his weight and he couldn't progress. The water he was in was jet black, and I couldn't see how deep it was. I kept calling to him to keep trying, but he just couldn't get out of the water. His eyes were bulging, and he was panicking to get out. He doesn't like to swim at all, much less sliding into a frozen lake. Once or twice, he let himself slip down to his collar in the water, and I was starting to think that he was a goner. I kept looking at the ice under me, and I knew that I could be treading water myself if it wasn't good and thick. I found myself inching toward him, and I got down on all fours to spread out my weight The ice under me looked hearty and didn't budge when I pushed down on it. Before I knew it, I was only a few feet from him. Finally, he dropped his front legs back into the water and tilted his head to the left to support himself on the ice - he looked tired. I said "Come on!" one more time, and he splashed his front paws back onto the ice. I leaned as far as I could to him and just reached his scruff, right behind his ears. He pulled out of the water like a wet rag, and he was suddenly safe. I moved away from the edge, and we started back to the car.
On the way back, I got a couple of pictures of the dog and the spot he went in:
Here is a close-up of the spot where he went in. You can see the footprints on the right side of the picture
Here is Jack drying off the best way he knows how (no, he's not dead)
and in the car after the ordeal
I don't know if or how this experience affected him, but this is a picture of him on the way home while I was stopped at a light. Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't look like his usual expression in the back of the car.
Well, after all is said and done, he's home and dry now. I suppose there's an allegory in all of this about obedience. We can try to understand why it's important to be obedient, but sometimes we have no way of knowing what dangers there truly are ahead of our poor choices. Jack had no idea he was going to slide into the water, but he knew that he was running where he shouldn't be. Hopefully we all end up like Jack after we make our mistakes: warm and dry at home.
