I Should Probably Clarify That.

Mad Barney wasn't my dog. He was a dog that someone else had adopted from a rescue centre. That mutual friends, eventually, put in touch with the Maka'm unit.

Like all rescue dogs he was a bit; "Canine: Origin Unknown." However he certainly had some sort of Collie in him.

Collies are highly intelligent working dogs. They're often used on farms because they know that when the sun begins to set the sheep need to be back in their pen/barn. So go and round up all the sheep and put them in their pen. Without the farmer having to do anything.

Although they are also very good at rounding up stray children. It is somewhat cruel to keep them as pets. As without that work to do their brains sort of turn to mush. To the point they spend a lot of their time chasing parked cars. By which I mean repeatedly running into the back of the same parked car.

Mad Barney seemed to be predominately German Shepherd. As the name suggests these are also highly intelligent working dogs used to look after sheep. With the added duty of protecting the sheep from wild wolves. So German Shepherds are highly aggressive. When they need to protect their charges.

Not knowing Mad Barney's origins we certainly didn't know his original owner. Although from all the scars and healed broken bones we can assume they were not a nice person.

This seemed to have left Mad Barney with some sort of serious psychological issue. Something like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Possibly even Schizophrenia.

So his aggression seemed to be completely random. It wasn't something he seemed able to control. Let alone something you could train out of him.

You could be sitting there on the sofa with him curled up at the other end. No-one stealing his food. No-one threatening his territory. No-one poking him. In fact nothing at all happening.

Then, suddenly, he would leap up and full-on try to kill you.

That was just about okay with me. As I was stronger than him and well skilled in keeping the sharp bits away from my body. It was though completely unacceptable for passers-by, other dogs and small children.

The decision to humanely destroy him wasn't taken unilaterally or lightly. Instead in close collaboration with the rescue centre and a number of vets.

It's just it turns out that "PTSD/Schizophrenia in Dogs" is a really small WhatsApp group. 

Apart from that though.

Miley Cyrus' odds seem good.

 

As to why Zendaya's character in "Euphoria" shares her name with another dog. That wasn't so much re-homed as, like all gypsy dogs, just moved onto the next stable food supply.

Don't ask me.

I didn't name either of them.

I bet you didn't know that Zendaya had a cameo in Dropkick Murphys video though, did you.