As Ivy and Zo Bear grew up with an in-ground pool for their first five years, swimming almost daily in Florida, we feel we need to find a way to allow the two boxers to swim. We do have a pond they go in a lot, but it’s not big enough for them to swim. And yes, when we first moved to Maryland, I did buy an above-ground pool with real stairs. Ivy is fine with the pool stairs; Zo Bear doesn’t like them. We also had some issues with the home we were planning to purchase in 2023, which had an in-ground pool, and it didn’t work out. While we were driving, aka moving from Florida, we had to find a rental home, which luckily worked out.
Give us pool ideas
And then we decided to purchase a home after a year of living in Maryland. Then Zo Bear had to have TPLO surgery, and we didn’t try to put the pool out in the backyard because he was healing and couldn’t use stairs. Our backyard doesn’t have many flat surfaces, and we also have a septic system and the weight of the water; we are concerned it could destroy the system. We aren’t building a pool as we are living in seasons and the cost isn’t doable. (Although Ma keeps sending Dad videos of converting garages into an indoor pool area…)
Swimply?
We’ve been looking on Swimply, which we may do a few times in August. They also have a decent TikTok following (68k), with over 1k followers on all their other networks, so if anyone wants some content of dog pool play for their socials, we are always open to a trade.
If there are any other suggestions, we’re open to them as well. We’ve also found a few indoor pools for dogs, but being Boxers, we think it would take them an hour just to get familiar and comfortable with the place. And any of the lakes or streams around, we were told not to let them in, or they could become ill. So we chlorinate our backyard waterfall pool pond, and they are happy, but we know they miss pool play.
We are located 45 minutes East of DC, so if there are any ideas you would like to share with us, that would be great!