The two total sods I ever had to deal with was Puff - our youngest Pointer bitch, and a lodger's dog, Bosun.

Puff was quite simply too bright to be a Pointer. Probably because we crossed two gene pools - Axel who was largely Crookrise (the modern Pointer) and Cassie who was largely Hurwyn (the classic pointer) - so there was a nice big set of neural pathways. A swagger in her walk (even after spayed because of pyometria) and too fast for her own good. She'd face down a Rottweiler or Rhodesian Ridgeback, nip it on the nose and be in the next county before it knew what had happened. With bipeds however, she was totally in control of her body. You'd tell her - she'd stiffen - you'd tell her again and she'd do. You'd turn your back and walk away thinking "job done" and you'd hear a tiny "wuff" - amost a sussuration with a bit of lip in it, rather than a quiet bark - so quiet that you almost could not be sure you'd heard it - but Puff would have had the last word again!


Bosun was simply nasty. A so-called "Bull-jack" - bred to fight by pikeys in Essex. His sire was a well known Essex fighting dog called "the Rat". Part Jack Russell, quite a lot of Staffordshire, only an inch or so longer than a normal Jack Russell but almost the same across the beam and a jaw like a mechanical digger. That fighting tradition works by putting two dogs in a dustbin and sitting on the lid. The one still alive when you take the lid off is the winner. Personally I'd take a Kalashnikov to the owners. His owner my lodger "rescued" Bosun but never managed to housetrain him (not nice) and eventually Bosun moved out when I caught him pissing on lodger's Gibson J-45 and told lodger that if Bosun was not disposed of then lodger AND dog would be disposed of, bail or no bail conditions.

At that stage I had Bonnie (a spayed Great Dane bitch, well past her prime) and Benjamin (who I still have, the cleverest dog I ever met - neutered Border Collie - something. I was told the something was Black Lab but I suspect Dobermann). Well, Bonnie outweighed Ben about 1.5 to 1 and was a good bit taller, and when young had also been faster - the long Great Dane legs - she was as fast as a Greyhound (in a straight line, corners she found tricky). She was also blind on one side by the time Bosun moved in. Benjamin however was as quick as light and outweighed Bosun several to one - but without the excavator jaw. So Bonnie could whip Ben - but Bosun could come up on her blind side and get a leg and she was over. Ben was a handful for Bosun, but if Bosun got under him he was in charge. So we had an endlessly churning society - until the day Bosun went for Bonnie in a narrow passage, could not dodge, and Bonnie got Bosun in her mouth - not across his back, but head to tail! Although on her hind legs she was taller than a man I never really realised how huge her jaws were until then. After that Bosun was a lot more civilised - but still not housetrained and his owner appeared unable to get the job done.