Our most recent 'Little Ladies Man'

After our first litter of Great Danes we decided to not breed our dogs again for the foreseeable future. But we were not ready to say 'never', so we decided to build a pen within our privacy fenced double lot backyard to keep our pets apart during those crucial weeks of the year. We decided to go with horse panel. We figured it would be sturdy as well as safe. Since we did not like for our dogs to ever be hungry, we offered our dogs their food on a constant basis. In order to keep out flies and vermin, as well as make it easier for our dog to eat without having to bend down, we mounted an automatic dog feeder on the inside of the horse panel, just below the dog's head level. The feeder was made of metal, and all a dog needed to do to access the feed was to push in the metal door with his nose and begin eating. With a 'Lixit' water spicket for his water and the auto feeder in place, our dog began his first 'banishment' when our mother dog Chelsea came into heat. Bruin was miserable, and cried the whole time. We tried to lessen his misery by only leaving Chelsea out long enough to relieve herself before we let her back in, but he was still pretty inconsolable about his inability to have contact with his 'mate' during this crucial time. By the time her next heat rolled around, we were in dread of the sounds of misery that would soon emanate from the exciled one. As he began to be interested in her, we of course had to put him in the pen to avoid another litter. We then realized that Britta, the pup we kept back, was also coming into heat. Expecting a repeat of our sweet lug head of a male dog's whining to start as soon as the 'girls' were let out in the early morning, we lay back in bed for a Sunday morning of lost sleep-in time, since his 12 ft. square pen was located right outside our window. Soon, we drifted off to sleep, fully expecting to be awakened by Bruin, which would force us to end our female dogs' AM romp just to get some peace and quiet. But, the winning never came. Instead, we were awakened by a persistent, intermittent banging sound. I got up and went to the window, but all I could see was that the two girl dogs were standing by Bruin's pen, and he was excitedly trying to lick and get to them through the pen. The girls seemed uninterested in him though, so I was not worried. In fact, before I left the window I saw them bounding back to play in the larger fenced in area, with little or no apparent concern for Bruin or his interests. Back in bed, just as I was about to drift off to sleep again, the banging sound returned. I went to the window as before, and again I saw both Chelsea and Britta by the pen, the banging sound again had stopped, and the girls again bounded away shortly after I began to watch them. This scenario happened several times throughout the early morning, until finally I could no longer sleep. I decided to just stay at the window to see if the banging would start while I was watching, so I could figure out what it was and fix it. I assumed that the wind was blowing something, or that the dog was maybe messing with the fence trying to escape. A scenario which I would definitely need to remedy right away. So there I sat staring for several minutes watching Bruin watch the other dogs. Bruin seemed quite content to just stare at girl dogs who were obviously quite beautiful to him in their current condition. Then Bruin did something quite strange as soon as the other dogs went behind our 12 x 24 ft. storage building. He quickly ran over to his automatic dog food feeder and repeatedly hit and released the metal access door with his nose so that it made the rhythmic banging sound. When the girls came back in sight, he stopped banging the feeder. As soon as they went behind the building again, he again started banging. As before, when he could see them again, he stopped. I thought this was very unusual. I wondered if maybe the stress of being in such close proximity to two females in heat without being able to get to them was causing anxiety driven repetitious behaviors, much like an animal that paces in an enclosure, or begins to self mutilate. Alarmed, I awakened my husband and asked him what we should do. I did not want to cause our apparently slow-witted dog to loose his sanity. Concerned himself, my husband watched with me as our lovable, friendly giant seemed to engage in purposeless, repetitious behavior. We discussed whether or not we should remove the feeder, or at least put it at ground level to discourage the behavior. But we decided that he might find another less suitable outlet for his stress, so in spite of what we could now see was a dog food encrusted nose, we decided to leave the feeder for now. As we somberly watched our pet descend into apparent canine mental illness, the dog began to increase the rapidity of the banging with his nose as the female dogs got closer to the pen. Then when they arrived, he took his muzzle and with a sweeping motion he scooped some of the food onto the ground. Then, he took his nose and pushed the little chunks of kibble toward the fence, and the waiting female dogs on the other side. After a furious effort to get several pieces of food to the other side, he then hurried to the back ends of the females as they would coincidentally turn parallel with the fence as they ate. We then realized that Bruin was 'ringing the dinner bell' in an effort to get the females as close to his pen as he could. My husband, full of testosterone filled pride, was estatic that his 'boy' had devised such an inovative way to get closer to the females in heat. As for me, I began to suspect that this dog's 'selective intellegence' was probably representative of males of all species in general, including humans. And I think any woman who realizes that her husband can remember all of the sport stats of all of his favorite players, yet can't remember how to properly run the washing machine intuitivly knows this.