Just a few weeks ago we were lucky enough to welcome a new four legged member into our family, a Red Doberman.  At a little more than a year and a half old, she is a beautiful red female Doberman.  However, her looks are only one of the things that make her special.  She is one of the most affectionate, mellow, sweet natured Dobies that you’ll ever meet.  Everyone that gets to know her is immediately jealous that we share our home with such a great girl. 

Because of her gentle nature, she has gotten along famously with our other 3 dogs.  She and our Madde are especially fond of each other.  What they say about opposites attracting evidently carries over to dog as well.  Don’t get me wrong, Madde is our princess and we couldn’t love her more.  On the other hand, she is definitely the boss and what she says, goes.  She’s not always polite about it either.  Despite this, the new Red girl and Madde play together like they were raised together.  Their favorite toy is a terribly beat up old 4 legged squeaky toy who has lost 2 of its legs with the other two not far behind.  They tug to a chorus of vicious sounding growls but it’s all just a game.  If one happens to let go, the other is right there shoving the toy in their face like “C’mon we were just getting started!”

We noticed right away that she seemed to prefer soft, cuddly toys.  This is something we no longer have many of at our house because of the other two Dobies.  They think the reason we give them stuffed toys is to make stuffy murder scenes all over the house and back yard.  In contrast, she is not a shredder at all.  She would much rather take a soft floppy toy and bounce around like a bucking bronco, shaking the toy up as she goes.  Then we noticed that’s not the only reason she likes soft, cuddly things.  The first time I saw her do this I laughed so hard I nearly cried.  It was bedtime and our 3 Dobes were settling into the king size mattress that they graciously let my husband and I share with them.  We were trying to get comfortable but the bed kept giggling in one spot.  Looking over, we see her with the corner of our comforter fluffed into a little mound in between her two front paws.  At first I thought she was trying to shred the blanket just as the other two dogs would have been doing in the same situation.  But no, there she was with the mound of comforter in her mouth sucking away on it while she kneaded the outside portion with her front paws!  This went on almost every night as her way to fall asleep.

 It didn’t stop there though.  One evening I was relaxing on our Lazyboy with a light fleece blanket over my legs.   Oftentimes one of the girls will climb onto the recliner to cuddle and she was acting like this was what she wanted to do.  She got her front half on my lap but instead of hopping up the rest of the way she started pawing at my legs.  I tried to coax her up to get comfortable with no luck.  She just kept pawing at my legs like she wanted me to move so I started to scoot over.  When I did this she leaned over, grabbed my blanket in her mouth and started dragging it off of me.  Once she had gotten it down she gave me a look like, “Thanks! That’s all I wanted” and went on to do her bucking bronco routine shaking the blanket all over as she went.  After it was sufficiently shook up to her liking, she plopped down in the middle of the living room and pulled a tuft up in the middle with her mouth.  Sure enough she went to town, sucking away and kneading like a nursing puppy.  We have now gifted this blanket to our Red girl and named it her "Binky”.  Some people have children who carry a blanket and suck their thumbs.  Evidently we’ve got the canine equivalent living at our house!