Sie, ihn oder es?
Say you are talking a female dog, in german would you be referring to the gender of the dog (sie, ihr) or the gender of the noun "Hund" (er, ihn und ihm)?
What makes more sense ....or even just, what is more common?

Question

Answer

I think it depends on how familiar you are with the dog. If you don't know the dog well, probably you don't know the gender and you might say: er/ihn/ihm, because of 'der Hund'. But if it is your dog, probably you would refer to it/him/her(?) according to its actual gender. For example, I definitely talk about my cat as 'er' etc. being a male, but 'die Katze'. Isn't it a little bit the same in English?

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