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We have a McNabb that we found in the desert one day. Was about a year old, still had both sets of teeth in its mouth, was malnourished, had worms, and was a quite a wreck. It had spent its puppy months alone in the cold and snow of winter. She walked right into the camp, jumped in a camp chair, and just was happy to be somewhere safe and freindly. She was brought home, brought back to health. At first, she was deathly afraid of doorways, and would not go anywhere near stairs. Now she is the freindliest, most well behaved, and intelligent dog I have seen in a while. After her health came back she got as playful as a puppy, but also rules the roost and allows nobody to mess with her family or dog friends. She is a joy to take camping as she remembers full well what it is like to be alone, so she will range around, but never out of ear shot, and will return immediately if called. Her and her best buddy black lab, are also very good with running with the truck up in the mountains, where you turn them loose, while driving up in the hills....they never cross near the front of the vehicle, and will instantly respond to commands to take a different two track if they take the wrong fork. They also never get out of eyeshot. Nothing more joyous than watching dogs run for unrestrained mile after mile.

This is as opposed to my other favorite dogs...Huskies, who are also incredibly intelligent, but tend to have a mind of their own, and very selective hearing (though female huskies are infinitely more manageable than males). Take them camping, and they tend to vanish for many many hours if you take your eye off of them even for a second. Although I do miss our old male husky (who quite literally ran across the entire state of Nevada through his lifetime). That little bastard loved to run with coyotes, and harass wild horses. He once slipped away, when our attention dropped for just a second, and returned 14 hours later (and was spotted 25 miles away earlier in the day). He was notorious for slipping away the instant he saw anybody packing gear up to go home. Though one time my friend had just gotten a female rescue husky from a breeder who had obviously been abused, and never been outside. The female was high strung, and freaked out at the smallest thing, and did not like human contact much...we were driving from phoenix to reno, and stopped to camp near Rachel (area 51), packing up the next morning, the male did his MO (we forgot to chain him to the bumper first), and the female followed him. We were unable to locate them, but eventually they returned a few hours later(having made us lose a whole day)...annoying at the time, I will say one thing unequivocably, the female who left was not the same dog that returned. It was the first day of her life, probably the best day of her life, and her personality was 100% changed, and she became a sweet, confident dog. She was a joy to take camping, as being a female, did not have the wanderlust that males seem to have, you still had to keep an eye on her, of course, but she wasn’t just going to vanish the second your eyes were averted, then pretend not to hear you if she crossed some magic 50 yard distance away. I do miss the male though, though a pain in the ass at times, that dog had the best life a dog could have without living on a ranch.