@MontereyJack,
Great doggie, there.
My mother was thrown off a dock at Lake Champlain by her older brother, sometime around, say, 1912, when she would have been about ten. She was terrified, he had to hoist her out, and she never went in a pool much less a lake or ocean after that, for the rest of her life.
So.... I got swimming lessons when I was about nine. I didn't get very far but did learn to dog paddle. Took lessons again in high school at a small facility, and again learned to dog paddle. Not until I was in my mid/late thirties did I get serious and take myself to the local YMCA, where I eventually (I do mean eventually, it took me a long time to get stronger) could do a mile doing the crawl.
Interesting, all this about the animals needing learning time.. at least some of them.
