My dogs love swimming in cold water, they act like they don’t even feel it. I do worry how far they could swim so it’s a constant guessing game about what they will do.
Then you need good voice control over your dogs. I had a big Border Collie back in the 1990s. She was a fearless swimmer including the ocean and major rapids. I was eating lunch in the Sierras at a big lake. I looked up and Chelan was headed for an island about 250 yards away. She was only 8 months old. I called to her and she came in.
Once on Lake Tahoe she rolled off my sailboat in over 100 feet of water far from shore. She started following the boat, even with luffing sails we were going faster than she could swim. I told her to “go home.” She turned around and swam away from me. I came about and picked her up. She was a great boat dog.
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My dog would follow me but know he would not go away from me and I have never thought to teach him that.
And like Mohave’s dog I think Olaf would be ok with cold water to some extent. But I am not as ok with it. I have a wet suit but no dry suit, and my feet will get cold fast standing in ice water.
So I will err to the side of caution when it comes to training the dog.
I expect I’ll be training myself just as much. Some of Boysen is shallow enough to warm up quickly when the days warm up, and that should not be too far in the future. (It’s snowing right now so I didn’t go out today. I was planning on it, but changed my mind.)
To start out I think I’ll make a good campfire near the water and have it going before I go in. So if I get cold I can simply come back to shore from maybe 20 yards out and warm up. Doing that for a few hours should give me a lot of time to get Olaf used to the canoe and how to act and also give me the ability to keep the lesson going for a while.
I am pretty careful and he usually wears a life jacket.
I get a lot of pleasure seeing him run wild and he wears a GPS that costs 40 euros for two years.
So far he has never run off, this breed wants to be with its flock. Our previous dog would try and swim out to my kayak and that was a problem. We had to paddle in turns/
Herding dogs stick around. Lifejackets on dogs is really a good idea. Especially in aerated water. Especially in cold water.
Snowing for days Easter weekend in Nevada.
Even I know I can’t climb back in with a dog paddling all over me 
That would suck to watch your dog drown. My other dogs were strong swimmers having grown up with pools but this dog doesn’t have a lot of swimming experience. I notice he doesn’t have his stroke down with the glide and rest.