Boating Dog?

In the middle of summer, it gets hot on Lake Ontario. Being the avid boaters that we are, we went boating on the bay on a Saturday and brought Tony with us. Now I'm no color specialist, but I'm sure being a black dog in the middle of summer is not fun. So, we anchored the boat and took Tony into the water for the first time. He's just a little puppy at this point but immediately we knew he was a water dog. As we sat on the swim platform with the dog sitting next to us we discussed how cool it was that we could bring him on the boat and that he loved the water so much. As soon as we said that, he jumped off of the swim platform and began swimming away from the boat! We were in water that was about 20 feet deep so it wasn't like we could walk out to get him and so my boyfriend jumped in and swam out to get Tony who at this point we could tell was losing steam. Well, he finally reached Tony and by the time he brought him back to the swim platform his chest was completely clawed up with puppy nail marks LOL! From that day on, whenever we took the dog we knew we'd be better off to anchor on the beach which brought a whole other onslaught of issues. Chasing seagulls, other animals and so on would become a common thing. But he was a sucker for a good piece of driftwood to drag around in his mouth and every time I see a piece I am reminded of him.