The children’s cartoon series, Paw Patrol, centers around a young boy named Ryder and the six main puppies he’s friends with.  Together, they help the people around town with problems and each puppy has their own profession.  One thing to note, though, is that there’s a lack of girls in a show that doesn’t seem super pointed towards boys.  Sure, the leading character is a boy, but puppies are puppies.  It doesn’t really matter.  Out of the main characters, five of the six puppies are boys, leaving just one girl.  She’s blonde and very pink-themed, and in my opinion she’s just as cute, if not cuter than the others.  One thing I have a problem with is the seemingly intentional exclusion of her in missions.
	I picked two random episodes to watch, without any prior knowledge or bias on the show.  I kept in mind to keep an eye on Skye and see how prominent a character she is, though.  The first episode was the one that struck me the most.  The episode opens with the puppies playing together, like fetch and tug-of-war, etc.  However, it’s the five boy puppies; Skye isn’t present until Ryder calls them for a mission. While the puppies are playing, one of them sneezes.  When they’re called for the mission, Ryder initially picks Chase, one of the boy puppies to go, but he sneezes, and Marshall, the medical puppy, reports that he is sick and should stay home until he’s better.  This goes on, until Rubble, Rocky, and Marshall are the only ones not sick.  For some reason, Skye got sick, even though she wasn’t playing with the boys in the beginning.  Later in the episode, Rocky catches the cold, and Marshall takes him home to get better, and Marshall later gets sick at the very end of the episode, kind of as a comic relief.  However, this still shows an issue; Rubble, who was playing in the beginning (specifically tug-of-war), did not get sick throughout the entire episode, but Skye, who wasn’t even present and would have been helpful to the mission, had to stay behind.
	It’s also helpful to add that while other puppies have multiple roles and different gadgets and tools, Skye’s main tools are her helicopter (which is her vehicle, not unique to her since every pup has a vehicle) and a claw that comes from the helicopter.  Also, her job is to keep lookout for and to help with transportation for the other pups, another tag on the fact that a lot of female jobs are helping the male ones, plus the previous things giving an indirect message that girls can’t help out with things like this, which, of course, is a bad message, especially for a kid’s show.

	Another issue in Paw Patrol is the obvious lack of merchandise of Skye, or even being purposely excluded from merchandise despite being in the main cast (her name is even called in the theme song with the other pups).  The list of merchandise excluding her goes from t-shirts to even wrapping paper.  And, it’s not like boys don’t like merchandise to have the “girly” character on their clothes; in fact, a lot of parents complain about their kids being upset with her absence.  It reached the point where a tag began circulating on Twitter and other social media, “#WhereIsSkye?”
	Some examples of excluding Skye include a plate set including Zuma, Rocky, Rubble, Chase, and Marshall, but not having Skye, with the text “TEAM PLAYERS” on it.  Another is a lunch box with the same pups that reads “WORK HARD / PLAY HARDER.”  There’s even wrapping paper with every pup save for Skye on it.  The worst offense, I think, is the t-shirt that follows the trend of being plain with the character’s names listed vertically down it.  The shirt in question, though, lists “Chase, Marshall, Rubble, Rocky, Zuma” and--you guessed it--no Skye to be seen.  And then, the shirts that do include Skye are very pink and girly with things like “Best Friends!” written on it.  Pink and girly isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not good for Skye to be completely hidden from the boys’ section like that and vice versa.  It’s also worth noting that the boy’s shirts say things like “Rough and Tough!” and other mottos like that, but of course the girl’s shirts with Skye are kind and soft things, nothing trying to show off how awesome a character with a helicopter is.