Todays guest post is from a good friend of mine, who has one of the finest looking Dobes I have ever seen

The Underwear Wonder Dog

People tried to warn us, "Doberman's love things that smell like their owners".  Of course they do.  All dogs like things that smell like like their owners, don't they?  Little did we know when sweet, tiny Madde came home with us that our laundry would never be safe again...

First off, I acknowledge that I'm not the worlds most fantastic housekeeper.   This doesn't mean that we're terribly messy.  Like most people we occasionally have clothes that don't find their way straight to the hamper. Not a big deal right?  That's what we thought too.  As is turns out, Madde's favorite thing in the whole world is socks.  The dirtier and smellier they are, the more she loves them.  It started when she was small.  She would get ahold of one and, after a victory lap or two, start trying to see how many holes she could put in it.  Annoying for sure but not dangerous.  At least we live in Arizona and wear a lot of flip flops.  As she got older, her habit switched from chewing to swallowing.  The first time this happened it nearly scared me to death. I can't begin to tell you how frightening it is to wake up at 3am with your 4 month old puppy shaking uncontrolably and giving you a look that says "Somethings wrong, please make my belly stop hurting!".  My thought was automatically, "Oh no, she ate a sock and it's stuck".    I panicked of course and called her breeder and another friend who manages a veternary office.  She was still drinking water and keeping it down so they advised me to give her some time to see if it passes. 

Lucky for both of us after 5 hours of sitting and waiting, the whole time imagining the emergency surgery I was sure she was going to need, out came the sock!  I have never been so happy to see a dog go to the bathroom.  It was amazing that after it passed she was completely back to normal.  I had no idea at the time that this was going to become a regular occurrence in our life with Madde.

 After this first scare we started to be more cautious.  Clothes didn't get left on the floor.  If they didn't make it to the basket they were set up on a counter or a dresser.  For any other dog this probably would have been fine.  With Madde, not so much.  The next scare came on Halloween night after attending a friends party.  I had dressed up as a witch, complete with red fishnet stockings.  Tired from a late evening, I undressed and set the costume up on our dresser.  We finished locking up the house and returned to find Madde in the bedroom looking at us innocently with an odd little puff of red between her lips.  My husband gasped as we both realized what we were witnessing.  She had gotten a hold of my stockings and proceeded to gobble them up just like the famous spaghetti noodle scene out of Lady and the Tramp.  He ran at her and before she could slurp down that last little bit of stocking he grabbed it and started pulling.  It was like watching a clown show at the circus.  He pulled and pulled and pulled until finally the end of the fishnet came out with a hack.  As funny of a sight as it was to see, we both knew how lucky we were to have caught her in the act. There was no way she would have been able to pass something that size.  We were so grateful for our good timing that evening.

As she's grown, Madde's tastes have expanded to anything underwear related.  Now a days we have switched to a covered hamper which stays behind a closed closet door. 
She has stolen from every imaginable place, laundry baskets, counters, sinks, closets, bags, backpacks.  She has even stolen from the covered clothes hamper.  Not by flipping open the lid like you might think, but by sniffing out the desired item then nibbling and pulling it out through the holes.  I think she's singlehandedly keeping Hanes in business at this point.  We do our best to keep things out of reach but when you have a Dobie you come to the conclusion that most of the time they can outsmart you... Especially if it's something they want badly enough!

Denise and Madde