I have a Dobbie and Belgian Malinois mix who mostly exhibits Dobbie qualities in appearance. She is 6 years-old and is simply the gentlest dog I've ever owned. Everyone is her best friend. She has a presence though that a prowler would notice. Great, great dog.
@Lando Lincoln Maybe,maybe not. My dobie mostly fake-growled when she was playing with me or her cat overlord. If you were a stranger and didn't notice her until she growled,you had a problem because you were obviously where you weren't supposed to be,or she thought you were threatening me or the cat.
Out "free ranging" she was the nicest and most docile creature you ever saw. The one exception was at a party at a friends house one time. Every time I got invited to a party,I was told to bring Natasha. EVERYBODY loved her. She loved drinking beer and eating hotdogs,and despite being a full-sized dobie,when she got drunk she seemed to think she was a puppy,and would try to crawl up into people's laps. She was so non-aggressive and affectionate that everybody loved to see her.
That one party was an exception. A pair of retards showed up with a baby in a stroller,and pretty much abandoned the baby near a speaker. Natasha saw a baby,and immediately went quit drinking,eating,and begging to have her ears scratched,and went on guard dog duty. Anybody got within 5 feet of the baby heard a snarl and saw a lot of teeth. When the idiots who left the baby there came back to get her,people had to go find me so I could call the dobie off so they could get their baby to go home.
They also heard a lot of shit they really didn't want to hear from me for abandoning a baby at a party with 50 or so people they didn't know,and parking her in front of stereo speakers blasting out tunes. I really wanted to tune the father up,but no matter what I said,I couldn't get the SOB to take a swing at me.
I do have a funny story about her,though. I lived right next door to a fundie church,and at that time I was working from 7 to 5 in the day,and going to school at night from 6 to midnight. On Saturday,I worked a 12 hour shift as a security guard. I wasn't getting much rest and I was doing a lot of drinking.
The trouble started about 8 AM on a Sunday morning,when there came a "knock,knock,knock" at my door. The dobie always got between me and the door when this happened,and I didn't tell her "ok,go lay down",it was best you didn't try to come through the door. Nothing personal,it was just the way she was.
Who it was,was a member of the fundie church next door trying to get people to come to church on Sundays with them. Since I had just gotten off work at midnight and drank myself to sleep,I wasn't amused,but semi-politely growled,"No thank you,and please don't come knocking on this door again."
Next Sunday,different fundie,same knock. I was a little more hostile that time and told the guy to NEVER knock on my door again unless the house was on fire.
The third Sunday I was mad when my feet hit the floor to run to the door. I open the door and there is this sweet-looking little old lady with twin little girls maybe 6 years old who were probably her granddaughters,and they were adorable in their little church dresses.
I had already screamed at the last guy that was there,but there was no way I was going to shout obscenities at this little old lady and those adorable little girls,but I only had the door open far enough I could stick my head in the opening and see outside,and the dobie was growling and snarling a little,and seemed to be pissed I wasn't opening the door far enough for her to get out. Now,keep in mind,even if those little girls had been coated with B-B-Q sauce the dog wouldn't have harmed a hair on their heads. It would have been a total giggle and lick fest. Still,the old woman didn't know that,so she pretty much freaked out and grabbed the girls and started running down the hall way after I looked down at the dobies head and said "Tasha! How would you like to eat a few Christians? The young ones are nice and tender?"
That pretty much solved my Sunday morning wakeup knocks. For some odd reason that worked when my politely asking them to not come back again didn't.
That dog was more likely to bite me than she was those little girls.
