Hector's first swim

What a glorious spring day. We parked the car near to Preston Bagot and walked north along the canal towpath for about an hour. At about that point the towpath became a quagmire, so we turned and walked back again. 
Soon after we initially joined the towpath, Hector got a bit too close to the edge and fell into the canal. This was his first swim as he will normally paddle only just up to his knees in the river behind our house. Thankfully we had just passed a lock - if he had fallen into the lock we would have had to clamber down the ladder to rescue him somehow, as the water was at its lowest level and both lock gates were closed so he would have been unable to swim out.  Somehow I don't think he'll get that close to the edge again.