Having had a number of different breeds over the years and having a particular use (search and rescue) for my dogs, I have a preference for German Shepherd Dogs and I just love my labradoodle, Bender. Bender (depicted at left) is so smart and so biddable I can’t imagine going on a search without him.
He has this peculiar habit (that he developed of his own volition) of only returning the particular tennis ball that I have thrown. It doesn’t matter if I throw the ball into a lake or into a passel of balls at the dog park, he will only return with the ball that I threw. One day, knowing I had a Penn 4 tennis ball at the dog park, I threw the ball. He painstakingly gridded the 30 or more balls on the ground to find the one that I threw. A nearby man asked me what he was doing. Knowing his habit, I said “We are working on math. Today he is trying to cipher the square root of 16.” The look on the man’s face when Bender returned with the ball with a big number 4 on it was worth a million bucks!