People often arrive at their first session with a picture in their head: they’ll be out on the water within ten minutes, dog sat serenely on the nose of the board, job done. I love the optimism. The reality of good paddling training is a bit slower and a lot more useful.
So let me set expectations honestly. Here’s what your first few sessions with me actually involve, and why we do things in the order we do.
Every bit of paddling training starts with a chat, not a paddle. I want to know about your dog. Their age, breed, any injuries or health issues, how they cope with new things, and what their recall is genuinely like on a bad day rather than a good one.
I’ll ask about you too. Your paddling experience, your confidence in the water, whether you can self-rescue unaided. None of this is a test and there are no wrong answers. It’s how I work out where we start, because a nervous rescue collie and a bouncy young labrador need very different first sessions.
Your first session will almost certainly happen on dry land, and I make no apologies for that. We’ll be working on:
It isn’t glamorous and it won’t make a great photo. It is the single biggest predictor of whether your first time on the water goes well.
Next we add movement. Wobble cushions, a beached board on soft sand, anything that teaches your dog to stay relaxed while the ground shifts underneath them. This is genuine muscle conditioning as well as confidence work, and it’s what stops a dog panicking the first time a boat wake rocks you.
Alongside that, we push hard on recall. I’ll say it plainly because it matters: we never paddle with a lead attached to the dog on the water. A trailing lead is a snag hazard and, in the wrong circumstances, a genuine danger. Your recall is the safety line, so it needs to be reliable before we go anywhere.
Recall and training are two of the four pillars of the R.A.F.T. framework, and they’re the two people most often underestimate.
When we do get on the water, it’ll be shallow, calm and brief. Often just a few metres from shore, in water you can comfortably stand up in. We’ll do short stints broken up with plenty of breaks on the shore, and we’ll finish while your dog is still enjoying themselves rather than pushing for one more go.
Practical stuff worth knowing. Bring warm dry clothes to change into and clothing you’re happy to get wet to around waist height, because you will be in the water at some point. Bring a lead, lots of tasty treats and a positive attitude. I wear a wetsuit for this work even on warm days, and I’d suggest you consider one too, since Scottish water is cold enough to catch you out year-round.
I’m watching your dog’s body language constantly, and I’ll teach you to do the same. A relaxed dog lies down, looks around, shifts position comfortably. A worried dog holds a stiff low crouch, pants out of proportion to the effort, licks their lips, or fixes on the shore.
When I see the second set, we make things easier. That’s not a setback, it’s the system working. Pushing a worried dog through a session is how you end up with a dog who refuses to go near a board next time.
Paddling training comes in a few shapes, and the right one depends on you and your dog:
Some dogs take to it in a fortnight. Others need a full season. Both are completely fine, and I’d much rather build something solid slowly than rush and spend months undoing a bad experience.
If your dog has a wobble one week, we go back a step and rebuild. That’s not failure, that’s just training. The goal was never speed, it was a dog and owner who are calm and confident together on the water.
If you’re curious about what paddling training could do for you and your dog, get in touch and tell me a bit about your pup. We’ll work out the right starting point together, and build from there.
