Worst. Lifeguard. Ever.

My dog Rosie is a mix of black lab and Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever. Both are supposed to be good in the water.

We have an in-ground pool at our house, and this dog absolutely hates it. Whenever we are in it, she freaks out, barking at us and running around the concrete surrounding it. She never gets close enough to the water to risk falling in, though. The only thing that makes her get close to the water is when my young twin nieces (age five) and nephew (less than a year old) are in the pool with us. Then, she will come up to the edge and bark at us. She is a very protective dog, especially of the youngest ones around.

We were in the pool one day, and Rosie was near the edge, very concerned because we had the little ones in the pool. She turned around to go bark at my husband to let him know this was not okay, but she misjudged just how close she was to the edge, and her back legs fell in.

The look on her face of sheer terror was hilarious, only because I know she can swim; she just doesn’t like to. When she realized that no one was going to push her back up onto the side of the pool because we had the small children she was freaking out about in our arms, she resigned herself to swimming five feet over to the stairs to get herself out.

After she got out, she decided that the adults were protecting the small ones well enough and went to lay down in a sunny patch to dry off.