Dogs are so awesome...
Oh. All of them too, not just the ones trained to help out. When I was baby-sitting this puppy who has a few issues (nervous, not yet house trained, and so on,) we had someone come over with their young kid who was free to run around. Rather quickly, the dog was fetching all of the poison containers we had laid out for bugs. We didn't even realize what he was doing at first but he set down the first one in front of us and barked. It was pretty obvious then that the kid was near it not too long before that.
Plus, my little sister would be dead if our dog of the time hadn't gone 'camping' with us in the truck. I hear some noise while she's out taking care of her bladder on a tree, turn on the lights, and there's our dog's neck in the mountain lion's neck. I'm certain that our dog put herself in the way to save my sister.
Then when she was older, and I was around a pre-teen, she came and crawled into bed with me for the last night she was alive. She wasn't showing any symptoms and I had been too busy with school and drugs (forced legal kinds,) to be aware much of her for the last couple of years... but she still came to me just for that last night like she knew we'd need it. She had never slept with me before. Her hips collapsed the next day.
Dogs are the best. I've loved and lost every one that has been with me, but I know I'll always be able to do it again. Not as a replacement, but as another part of my life; and dogs always share their lives in return. We evolved with them and vice-verse; both of us need the other, and not just to have our back yards guarded.
<_>
Anyone have stories about their dogs? Cute or otherwise.