Ripley needed to blow off a bit of steam yesterday, so I figured I’d walk him over to the lake and see if he’d swim in near-freezing water. He knew the plan as soon as we headed in that direction, and he was overly eager to get there!
He plowed right in to chest depth, then stopped and looked at me with a “Really?” look on his face. But with a few words of encouragement, he was off swimming and retrieving! The afternoon was capped off by trying to swim down a pair of mallards that swam just fast enough to stay ahead of him. 
He came home with his fur frozen stiff. 
The cool water must have reinvigorated him because he was full of pee and vinegar, tearing around the house and terrorizing our kids. 