Afraid of water!

Dizzy is terrified of water! She has no reason to be as far as I know but was picked up as a stray as a pup so I don't know if she has any experience before then.

It is making taking her walking in certain places a nightmare! If she hears or sees water that we need to go by or even over on a bridge she has a panic attack! She will cry and try and back out of her lead thrashing about in panic. When she has done this I wait for her to get a grip then treat her but it seems to be getting worse not better.

My other dog is with her and happily paddles etc so she can see nothing awful will happen.

Does anyone have any other ideas what I could do as we don't live near any water to visit on a daily basis but life would be alot easier if she wasn't so frightened of it.

Hard to help without actually being there to see to it but i think you can def help cure this in some way.

My attitude would be to start very simply and associate water with all things good!!

Start of with maybe a very shallow stream and just sit close enough for your dog to see it and give her somethiing she loves like a small piece of chicken. do this for a few days then gradually get closer and only give her treats near the water but never force her...if she wants to run away from it i would let her but just not reward her for it obviously! If your other dog will go near it that should help.

I would keep a supply of tasty treats and use them whenever she is even near a puddle or anything!!
Water = Treats!!

And patience this could take months!! Good luck x

P.s make sure she gets treated for being near the water before she starts to panic! so you may have to start off pretty far away!!
Also keep yourself calm and dont fuss her too much!

^^ totaly agree
Make sure the distance you start with is the distance way before she has any kind of reaction to it and treat (or even take her whole dinner there) eat food then leave - never force her close to the water so she realises that only nice things happen near tje water

This may sound a stupid idea to others, but Bruce fell in the canal when small......he mistook it a part of the path.

We had this problem with him,the terror of water so I started with a saucer of water and patted his foot in it, then a bigger dish, then a couple on inches in the bath, then a old tin bath outside....and literally went on with it.

He still doesn't like swimming but he will paddle now.

Flint used to be terrified of water :S
I used to give him treats when he was walking past a puddle.
He walks off lead down the lane so doesnt get pushed into doing things he doesnt want to do.

He is obsessed with tug toys so he carries them around everywhere and wants to play fetch, so I used to throw his toy near a puddle and when he got it Id tell him what a good boy he was, making sure not to make a big deal about him getting it, because I knew he would lol

Now I can throw his toys INTO a big puddle, quite deep, and he will retrieve it without hesitation.

It took about 2 months to get to this stage tho!

Find a suitable place, make an effort to keep going there and take a really chilled out approach to it with lots of treats.

Dusty is a really timid Springer who was frightened of water and lots of other things too when we got him as a rescue last March. We live near a river and the other dogs love it, so we spent lots of time playing ball there in the summer because it was too hot to do anything else. Dusty was left to do his own thing pottering around the bank whilst the other dogs splashed around in the water. Gradually his curiosity got the better of him and look at him now!