Originally Posted by
Hemiram
I have a friend who used to have a Rott/Doberman mix, about 100 pounds and he was just obsessed with the "job" of watchdog. He was as bad patroling the house at all hours, as my late dog King was about hunting mice, but not as violent and deadly as King was to the mice. He lived to almost 12, and I guess he was happy at his job, but he wasn't exactly pleasant to be around. They lived in an older house back then and it creaked and groaned a lot, and just about everything set him into patrol mode. If you tried to get him to just sit and relax, it wasn't going to happen, and the night patrols tended to wake up my friend's daughter, whose bedroom was at the top of the stairs. I was over there one night and fell asleep in a recliner watching a movie. "Max" was getting up there and he apparently forgot I was there. He had known me since the day they got him at 9 weeks. I woke up, and my friend and his wife had both fallen asleep too, and I had to hit the bathroom, bad, and I got up quickly and went around the corner and almost ran into Max, who had heard us/me get up, and he was ready for action. He sounded "Red Alert" and I said, "It's me, you idiot!", he growled at me and came towards me with his head down and I could see the hair was up on his back. Luckily, he smelled me or it kicked in who I was, and his little stubby tail went into high gear. He did insist on taking me into the bathroom as usual. Not long after that, he was diagnosed with kidney failure and about 6 months later, he got put down. The Doberman who replaced him, "Jack" has a much more laid back work ethic, one patrol at bedtime, and only certain noises set him off, like people talking outside where he can hear them but not see them. When I go over there, he sits on my feet and leans against my legs, and then the ball comes out and he's relentless with it, along with the chin rubs that Doberman and Dobe mixes, like King and Molly, really like. Jack also is totally unafraid of all the noises that frighten most dogs, like fireworks, thunder, etc. That was the thing about King and Molly that made them so easy to live with, the lack of fear during the mid May to mid July fireworks season. Yes, that's how long it lasts here, most years, two months of bangs, pops, and screaming rockets. King and Molly actually would go outside and watch the neighbors shoot them off, until they got tired of the noise. They were the quietest dogs I've ever been around. When I took King to work, he barked 10X as much as he did at home, and the other employees would remark how quiet he was. I would cringe at first when he barked, but after a while, I realized all the other dogs barked way more then he did, so I relaxed. He got tossed out of work when some visitor came in with his cell phone in his hand and King thought it was food and grabbed at it as he walked past him. He really missed coming to work with me..