Dogs on boats...

[Pipe_Dream]

I know that plenty of you guys take your dogs out on your boat. Our first two Labs went with us on all but the hottest days. We're on our third Lab, who is a year and a half old, and has been going out on the boat with us since he was only a few months old. Like our first two, he gets really excited when he sees dolphin. He puts his front feet up on the gunnel, and I have to hold him back. But our first two never did this...

Yesterday we were floating in the Sound when a dolphin briefly came to visit. He got excited as always, but after the dolphin had been gone a half a minute or so I relaxed my grip on his leash. He was up and over in a second! I managed to catch his leash (it's about 15 feet long) and called him at the same time, brought him back alongside the boat, and it was all my wife and I could do to pull him up and back into the boat. It gave me quite a scare. Not certain what would have happened if I hadn't had the leash on him. I'm not sure he'll jump overboard again, but I'm not sure that he "learned" anything from the experience, either.

Any of you all had issues with your dog going over when he shouldn't have? How did you teach him to stay in the boat? After they had reached ages 3-4 years, we let our first two wander around the boat loose, and they never jumped out. I've trained dogs (my own) for many years, but I can't wrap my mind around how to train this guy NOT to jump out of the boat. Any suggestions would be appreciated.