Kayaking with Tierce

Today, Mischa and I took Tierce to First Lake, one of the Nanaimo lakes south of the city. We had never been there before and ended up driving longer than we thought. However, it was a fun outing.

Kayaking with Tierce had some problems to be solved. He's come a long way from the four-month-old puppy who I popped in the front hatch with ease:


In fact, it seems like the front hatch is now kind of cramping his style:


This could end up being a problem, because kayaks have this little issue concerning balance. It's really easy to tip one over and I can't have Tierce doing cartwheels while I'm paddling. At one point, Tierce was balancing on the top of the kayak, which ended up badly for him, as he tumbled into the water after slipping on the top.


So, we put him in Mischa's kayak, which has a wider front hatch.

Later, I tried to make a bed for him on the kayak, but it made the kayak too top heavy.


The interesting thing is that Tierce didn't overbalance the kayak when he was balancing on it himself so much as being in the "bed".

So, at this point, I think I have a few options:

- stick a non-slip surface on the kayak so that Tierce can balance on the top easily. However, for sea kayaking, this is not the safest idea.

- teach him to lie against me on the spray skirt or in the cockpit while I'm paddling. Not a lot of room there, plus, there's the danger that he and I could get stuck in the cockpit if we were to capsize.

- let Mischa take him in his kayak's hatch, since it's wider than mine

- figure out a way that he can sit and lie comfortably in the hatch without needing to wriggle, get up, turn around, fall out of the kayak, etc.

I've been searching on the Net for ideas, but haven't got very far. I'm going to see if there are some creative things I can do with waterproof foam padding.