Not all dogs can dog-paddle, but you can train them to be safe in the water

There are certain things we assume dogs know by instinct. Sniffing, for instance, sometimes in embarrassing places. Barking, too, and begging for food scraps are also downloaded onto dogs’ internal computers at the factory.

Then there’s swimming. It seems so integral to being a dog that we’ve even named a stroke after them, the dog-paddle — so you’d assume that’s another thing that every dog is born knowing how to do.

It turns out that you’d be wrong. Not every dog knows instinctively how to swim, and some can’t swim at all, Wendy Diamond, the founder and editorial director of Animal Fair magazine, told TODAY. Dogs’ aquatic abilities are so misunderstood, in fact, that she put together a list of water safety tips for dog owners.