Duck who can’t swim enjoys the pool with her floatie [Video]

• Keeper was an abandoned duck brought to a sanctuary.
• She couldn’t swim due to inborn limitations.
• Good thing the sanctuary came up with a bright idea — a giant duck-shaped floatie that helps her enjoy the pool and be around her new family!

You know the ugly duckling tale?

Well, that’s sort of a different narrative, but in a way resembles this story of how a duck may be different from the flock.

Keeper, a once-wandering duck, is not the typical kind. She has disabilities that, somehow, constrained her to fully enjoy the things a normal duck does. She’s pigeon-toed and couldn’t swim — possible reasons why she was apparently abandoned in a Walmart parking.     

Fortunately, a concerned stranger brought Keeper to Alyssa’s Animal Sanctuary, who learned about her physical limitations.

“We noticed right away that she had trouble swimming,” Alyssa Barry, Alyssa’s Animal Sanctuary founder, told The Dodo. “When her feathers got wet the water did not bead off of her like it should have, but instead the water soaked her and she would become waterlogged.”

The sanctuary owner added that when Keeper would paddle her feet, they would hit each other, and this had stressed her out.

Alyssa did a little research and learned that Keeper was born without a preen gland, the one responsible for making ducks waterproof through the oil it produces.

Her missing gland plus her pigeon-toed feet are the main reasons why the Pekin duck can’t swim. This restrains her from hanging out with the rest of the ducks in the sanctuary — which, according to Alyssa, made Keeper alone and sad.

Although Keeper had a kiddie pool so she can somehow enjoy the water on her feet, it seemed not enough as ducks like to stay with the paddling.

“… her family would go up into the pool and she would sit at the bottom of the ramp by herself until they came back down. It made me sad to watch her sit alone at the bottom of the ramp while her family played in their pool all day, and just wait for them to come back down out of the pool,” Alyssa shared.

But circumstances worked in favor of Keeper, when one day Alyssa spotted a giant duck floatie while walking through Walmart. Although she wasn’t sure it would work, Alyssa gave it a try and taught Keeper how to use it. After a few tries, the little duck became a floatie maven!

“She learned very quickly that she could balance perfectly fine on it, and she WANTED to be on it,” Alyssa said.

Alyssa added that other ducks don’t disturb Keeper at all, which is good so Keeper can just float all day and enjoy the water breeze, seeing a lot of ducks all around her.

And that floatie made Keeper feel that “she could be part of her family again.”

Source: The Dodo