Our story goes all the way back to the year 2001.

In one hot summer evening, we used the deep fryer to cook some prawn chips, and stank the entire house out with overheated oil.  It was so hot and humid that night that we decided to leave all the windows open to get rid of the smell and bring in some fresh breeze.  Before bedtime, we closed all the windows apart from the one in the  kitchen.  As I had to work through the night in the home office, I didn’t think much of it at the time… I had assumed that in the unlikely event of an intrusion, I surely would hear the noise.

I was wrong.

Next morning, my partner (Ms. S) wakes and up discovers fly screens removed from the window frame in the kitchen, and dirt scattered all over the kitchen bench.  Yup, a break in!  At first, nothing seemed to have gone missing, moved or turned upside down.  However, we eventually found two crucial items missing from the house: the car key and the house key.

Oh dear.

To cut the long story short, after much drama, we decided to get a dog.

Of course, we also considered getting a security alarm system, which would have been a lot cheaper and less hassle in the long run.  However, that wasn’t a viable option due to our housing arrangement at the time.  Plus, a dog seemed like a more flexible deterrent than an electrical device.

As a wanna-be dog owner, our first challenge was to determine what kind of dog we should get.  As our requirements were quite specific, this was no easy task:

(1) Deterrence against burglars
We wanted a dog that could not only bark, but also have enough physical presence with some visual impact.
This naturally ruled out pugs, chihuahuas, Scottish terriers and other smaller breeds, narrowing our options down to medium/large dogs.

(2) Short coat
We didn’t want the hassle of vacuuming messy long dog hair all  the time, and preferred an easy-to-wash breed with minimal grooming needs, purely for practical reasons (our place got messy quickly without the help of a dog anyway!)
This meant Golden retrievers, Afgans and other longer-haired breeds were unsuitable for us.

(3) Good family dog
We wanted the dog to have access to both inside and outside the house where small children would sometimes be present, so a family-friendly breed was a must.
Kitten adoption was also considered a possibility down the track (we thought a dog+cat combo would be a nice addition to the family!)
We therefore excluded fighting breeds from our list.

(4) High in intelligence
We wanted a dog that could be trained efficiently and properly.  We wanted a dog that could match our intelligence!

(5) Adaptability
Given our odd working hours and night-owl lifestyle, the dog needed to fit into our schedule, not the other way around, at least after puppyhood.

(6) Purebred
Although this was not a top priority, we wanted some predictability in terms of physical attributes (e.g., potential genetic health issues) and mental attributes (e.g., ease of training, temperament).