I have just recently started doing swim by with my 15 month old female.

When does one discontinue the drill? In the past I stopped after few weeks, and felt comfortable that the dog had fully understood the concept. I have done Swim by 3 times with her and after the first day she knew exactly what to do and handled with easy. Should I continue for a few weeks keeping the sessions short just to make sure she has a firm grip?

Most of the time our dogs learn the swim-by drill within a few days on our pond.....we then take them to a couple of other water channels we know of to see if they've got the idea in a new place......sometimes they need a little help at first, but if we are patient and encouraging they are quickly successful.

We have three small ponds that are in line with land in between them......Eventually we like to teach our dogs to exit at the end of two ponds going several yards up onto the land.....The dogs really like this!

Norene S.