Duck!

We now know that Oscar is an excellent swimmer. Although, it wasn't the way I expected to find out.
Sara and I took the dogs to Governor's Island--which is on the grounds of the Mendota Mental Health Institute. We walked the trails and let the dogs run around in the water of Lake Mendota. At one point, a duck swam out onto the water. Oscar got very excited and started swimming after it. I thought, no harm and it was kind of funny to watch...and I knew he would never catch up to it and it would eventually just fly off....right? However, the duck didn't just fly off...it flew up a little, landed quickly again, and kept swimming. Oscar kept swimming after it too. And now there wasn't just one duck, but it was momma duck and her three babies swimming ahead of her. Momma duck would fly up a little, land again, and keep swimming with her babies just ahead of her. And Oscar kept swimming after them too... At this point, I still thought it was kind of funny watching Oscar paddling along and chasing them. However, now the ducks were swimming away from shore and out toward the middle of the lake...and Lake Mendota isn't a teeny lake. Now I tried calling Oscar back to shore, but he was intent on not following directions. Needless to say, Oscar kept swimming after the ducks. If the momma duck had just taken off and not landed again, he probably would have lost interest. But, she stayed with her ducklings and kept swimming farther and farther away. I spent at least the next 10 minutes yelling for Oscar to come back. He and the ducks eventually became little dots in the distance...three small specks, followed by one larger speck, followed by a larger black speck. I was just hoping that Oscar wouldn't get too tired and I'd then have to figure out some way to rescue him before he drowned. Jumping in the lake to swim after him, running around to find someone with a boat, having to explain to the authorities and the 5 '0clock news how my stupid dog wouldn't give up on chasing ducks to the point of exhaustion...all of these thoughts went through my mind. Luckily, at some point he got bored and decided to listen to my insane screaming, turned around, and slowly paddled back to shore. Evidently, he has more stamina than I thought. He also wasn't exhausted afterward, because he still had plenty of energy the rest of the day. I guess he's more of a labrador retriever than I thought...or perhaps he's just been trained well by a certain Brittany Spaniel....