They’ve been my breed of choice since the 70s.
They crazy-loyal and will kill or die for the ones they love.
We have a lot in common.
:)
Oddly enough, *if* you were chased by a Doberman when you were a kid, it was almost certainly a friendly act that didn’t look so.
They are obsessed with children and adore them.
May have been just trying to give you a kiss.
I used to love to play rough with dogs, and dogs loved it too.
When I was eight or nine, my best friend’s family had a collie named “McDuff”, and OMG, we would tear ass across the yard, and the the dog would leap at you from behind and take you down, growling fiercely as it held your sleeve, jacket, or dungaree leg in its teeth, shaking its head vigorously from side to side as it did so.
Another friend had a great big gray Weimaraner with huge, menacing green eyes and a big bump on top of its head, and we would tease the dog until it was almost mad with desire to catch us. We would balance and walk on the top of the fence at the back of the yard, and the enraged dog would jump as high as it could, snapping its jaws shut with an loud, audible “snap”, but we were just out of reach. The game was, one of us would tempt the dog away, and when it was far enough, there were one of two goals for the other kid-as soon as the dog was past a point chasing the kid on the fence, the other kid would jump over the fence and run hell for leather through the yard to climb over the fence on the other side, or, alternatively, jump into an open bathroom window.
When you dropped into the yard, the dog would immediately tear after you, and laughing hysterically, you would scramble over the other side. I only got caught once when I tried to jump in the bathroom window, and the dog got my trouser leg and worried it like the end of the world was in the balance, growling fiercely as it did so, and making bloody tooth marks on my leg in the process!
I could tell, in both cases, the dogs completely enjoyed this rough game and thought it was as close as they were going to get to being real hunting animals that could catch prey, but boy, did they ruin my clothing.
I would go home with my dungarees all in tatters with big holes ripped in the legs, and my mother would go ballistic! When she would demand to know what I had been doing to cause that damage, I would lamely lie about falling out of a tree or something like that.
I think if I ever told her we were intentionally allowing dogs to chew our clothes to pieces, she would have had a real cow!