Oh To Have Hands

Barley, a dog, grapples with the puzzle of how to extract last scraps from a tub of Nancy’s Probiotic Nonfat Yogurt.

Barley, a dog, gingerly settles onto her dog bed while reorienting a tub of Nancy’s Probiotic Nonfat Yogurt.

Barley, a dog, makes delicate licks to a tub of Nancy’s Probiotic Nonfat Yogurt resting on its side, so as not to push it away while doing so.

When we first rescued Barley, she was problematically mouthy. It didn’t seem aggressive or dominance-oriented, she just kept kind of gently handling you with her big scary chompers. That behavior’s long been trained out of her, but what remains clear is that she only ever learned how to manipulate things with her mouth. She rarely paws at objects and even then it’s usually a crude stomp. So when she’s trying to get the last scraps from an empty tub of Nancy’s, it’s like watching a cross between a bomb being defused and bobbing for apples.