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First, I’d like to be added to the doggie list.

Second, darn this story broke my heart.

I had a dog save my life once. Too, I have a dog looks almost like Dakota right now. She’d give her life gladly for me or my beloved granddaughter.

The dog that saved my life now rests in our garden under a handsome grave marker. What happened, my daughter had a boyfriend and hey, my daughter sure can pick them.

So one early eve this guy comes to my door and he’s all acting crazy. Seems he and my daughter had a fight of some kind and he wanted to see her.

Well my daughter wasn’t home but this fellow had been inside my house several times before and I was about to open the door to let him in, wait for my daughter maybe, I don’t recall.

But my dog, a normally friendly as all get out mongrel dog was barking like demons had possessed her. Which was odd as she knew this fellow and often sat and let him pet her. Anyway she was barking so much that I had to tell the fellow that I don’t know what’s wrong with the dog but she just wasn’t going to let him inside.

The next day we hear on the news that this same fine fellow my daughter with the questionable taste in men was dating had beat a GUY TO DEATH WITH A BASEBALL BAT!

The very next day...hand to God.

I am quite sure that my dog sensed something about this fellow that I didn’t pick up at all. Like I say, he’d petted her a few times in the past.

The dog I have now is a Belgian Malinois. These are the dogs that were used for searching the rubble at the World Trade Center. If you remember they got so bored that the rescuers had to pretend to be buried just so the dogs could be happy. In fact, Belgian Malinois are the preferred dogs of police departments across the land.

Anyway, I just broke down in sobs when I read this story. What a beautiful dog.

I am sure she gave her life gladly. How heartbroken her handler must be. Makes me want to scream.

Hope this cool guy spends some time in jail such a clever, happening guy.

Nice story. Glad you all got out of that 1!

But I must say, the vast majority of rescue dogs at WTC were German Shepherds, not Malinois. In fact, the “DOGNY” art project used German Shepherd molds as the basis for the painted dogs all over NYC the year or so after 9/11.

Mals are indeed encroaching on GS territory, probably because of so many problems with the huge popularity of the latter breed, and cliques coming up with bastardizations of what a GS should really be. But still, GS are the top breed in the whole world for police/mil work, and generally, too. There just aren’t enough Mals, yet.

> The dog I have now is a Belgian Malinois. These are the dogs that were used for searching the rubble at the World Trade Center. If you remember they got so bored that the rescuers had to pretend to be buried just so the dogs could be happy. In fact, Belgian Malinois are the preferred dogs of police departments across the land.

Mals are indeed a very fine dog. And in many ways they correct some of the issues that have developed in the GSD breed over the years: for some bizarre reason people like their GSDs to have a sloping back, and to be on the small side (the latter probably for agility, tho’ God Knows why you’d want a *small* GSD!!!)

My next dog may be a Mal, tho’ I am awfully fond of the GSD breed. My current dog is a prodigy: nice square back, built for work not for show. Her mum was a schutzhund and her dad a police dog, and she was bred to be friendly and affectionate. She understands spoken English (not just “commands”) and is overtly cuddly and friendly with little kids: in fact she will herd them away from dangerous things like sharp corners on coffee tables &tc. And when she senses Danger, she is all hackles-and-teeth... and yet completely in control.

She’s Daddy’s Girl and she knows it! Right now she is sleeping on my leather Lay-Zee Boy recliner in front of the fire, just like she knows she is not supposed to...

(that’s one rule I don’t particularly enforce, unless I want to sit in the recliner!)

There is something majestic about GSDs and also about Malinois that other dogs don’t really have. Dunno what it is, but it is definitely there.