They are total retards, eh? Loveable, but feckin' useless at anything other then slobberin', looking for toys or trying to eat furniture. That's what I like about them, really. You think you can train them to be guard dogs, but they are basically doggie Obilix. "When can I have the magic potion? Can I have the potion now? Where do you want this giant stone?"

Best guard dog we had was in PNG. Thing tried to eat my dad when he looked at him at the pound, but totally loved my mum, so we adopted him. No specific breed though. If you read any Pratchett, and know about "We are Igorth", he was a bit like that. Like several breeds of dog that looked like it had been in some horrific traffic accident and hastily stitched back back together. He was brown and white. That's pretty much all you could say. He was big, but medium sized... hmmm, he seemed a lot bigger than he actually was. He learned how to talk, which was cool. When I say talk, I mean actually talk. He'd lead our troop of dogs to the car when we got home form school (the highlight of the day for the dogs) and actually say "hello". I think he got that from us all saying "hello Rex" and patting him and telling him he was a good boy, etc as we got out of the car. It almost looked like he was deliberately dislocating his jaw to do it, and the word came out all slurred and odd, but after a lot of practice he did it. Every school day for a couple of years he'd run up to the car barking, and when the doors opened he'd get this concentrated look, stand still, crack his jaw in a weird way and say "hello".

One time I opened the back door of the house in the morning while having my breakfast to feed the dogs. They were all standing there, as they always did, wagging their tails and waiting for food and happy to see their humans made it through another night. Only this time Rex was covered in blood. He dumped a chunk of meat that he'd pulled from one of the blokes that tried to break into out place in front of me, wagged his tail, and said "hello". We found the wrench that had cracked the skin on his head open further up the garden. Some dudes had cut through the fence and tried to have a go at our dogs with weapons, which they left behind. Crowbar, crowbar, and wrench covered in Rex blood. Little-but-bigish, non-nondescript white and brown dog took a big wrench to the head, shook it off, then took a chunk off the guys calf to show us in the morning. Wasn't the only time he fended off this sort of thing either.

What can I say? Rex was less than half the mass of the smallest Rottweiler I knew, and absolutely charming and wonderful, in a tough "I'm the boss of this place" kind of way.

"Hello"?

I've not seen "Sons of Anarchy", but "Anarchy" sounds like a place your Dad and our Rex would get along. They'd be total badasses and bring badassery justice to all and sundry.