Getting Handsy

Barley, a dog, grips the base of a stick in her paws as she gnaws at it, having turned her head almost 90 degrees to do so.

A subtle but substantial change that Barley has displayed over the years is a growing manual dexterity. While still entirely outclasses by all of nature’s beasts with genuine hands (such as raccoons), she is, today, able to position her paws in ways that consistently stabilize objects of interest and provide appropriate counter-pressure to her chomps. When she was first rescued, she really couldn’t do so at all and instead relied entirely on her mouth to accomplish things. This isn’t limited to objects, either. In those early weeks, she would gently nip at you to get your attention (a bad habit we had to train out of her right away, since it could be easily misconstrued). Today, she will instead prod you with her paw if she feels she’s not getting her due attention, which she never used to do. Granted, this aptitude has grown very slowly over many years, so it was easy to overlook, but the contrast today with how she used her paws back in 2018 had become really clear.