Girls and boys

I've seen several TikToks lately addressing the question of whether to get a male dog or a female dog. The answer given is "Do you want happy and dumb, or smart and bitchy?" It may be a generalization, but I think there's more than a grain of truth to it. I swear it's true about German Shepherds and in my experience it's been true of most other dogs as well. The Doberman puppies seem to be proving the point, about the smart part at least.

I started keeping them in dog yard for most of the day, all day really, from morning until it's time for bed. They like it there, there's much more space to run and play, shade for most of the day, and bare dirt to lie in under the platforms. At first I was scattering their food instead of using the bowls because the two male dogs, and Saxon in particular, were dominating the food bowls and I wasn't sure the girls were getting their share. Then I started putting the food in bowls again, but I put the food up on the platforms, just one level up, easily accessible and plenty of room. The two girls figured out how to get up there very quickly, it's just a couple of stairs, although the stairs are a bit rickety and they require some coordination to navigate. One of the boys, Rex, finally caught on after a day or two, although he's still the third to get up there at every mealtime. Poor Mr. Saxon, the king of the food bowls, can not figure out how to get up those two or three steps even though he's watched the others do it over and over. He tries to jump and pull himself up, he tries to reach for the food bowls to tip them over and knock them down, but it does not occur to him to go over to the stairs and walk up. When he does attempt the stairs it seems that the front end of the dog isn't communicating very well with the back end. He doesn't know where his back legs are half the time. 

I finally took pity on the guy, tired of watching him try and fail with the same approach. I would lead him over to the stairs and sort of pull him up, but instead of turning to the right onto the platform where the food was located (on the other end), he'd turn left and jump off and run back over to where he was closest to the food but couldn't get to it. Problem solving is not his forte. I'm feeding them up there exclusively now so this morning I got concerned that he wasn't getting his share of the food and I led him over to the stairs again. This time he managed to get his back legs working in concert with the front ones and he made it up, more or less on his own and went over to the food. We'll see if he remembers at lunch and dinner time.

That's Cara up top eating already, and Cordova on the left is heading up the steps.

Rex, in the green collar is standing up trying to reach the food. 

Saxon is just standing there clueless.

That's Saxon with his ears inverted, as they usually are, running towards me wanting help.

That's Rex, still trying to figure it out.

This is Cordova, just up the steps and, crucially, turning right instead of jumping off to the left.

The two girls demonstrating how it's done. Rex at least is watching.

The two girls are eating already. Rex has just made it up on the platform to join them.

I've circled Saxon, standing up from behind the platform, trying to reach the food bowl.

Three of them eating now, Saxon is still standing back there watching with no idea how to get up there.

Here is Saxon eating after I helped him up there.

I think the two girls were probably fine with Saxon not being able to get up there.

He has seen all three of them climb the stairs several times now, but he seems determined to just wait until he's big enough to make the jump.

At the mid-day feeding Thursday afternoon, Saxon still didn't go up on his own, but I was able to lead him up the steps with a food dish. I didn't have to physically assist him. That's progress.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has donated food, supplies, and/or money to Green Dogs Unleashed for the Doberman pups, the Shar-peis, or any of the other 68 dogs that GDU took in from that hoarding case in Oklahoma. A special thank you to Natural Pet Essentials in Charlottesville for the hundreds, probably thousands, of pounds of dog food donated. Here's a couple hundred pounds of it that I picked up yesterday.