This image puts it all into context for me.
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This is our grand daughter hugging our dog. He's highly intelligent, calm, and quite gregarious. Definite working instincts. Hook him up to a cart and he is all business with a tail happily wagging. He wanted to be occupied doing something so we kept teaching him trick after trick. He enjoys being with one of us. Whenever one of us isn't feeling well, he seems to sense it and stays near. We figure his vocabulary is pushing 50 to 60 words some of which we have to spell (e.g. d-o-g p-a-r-k).
He's a therapy dog. He loves meeting people. Whenever something seems out of the ordinary, he wants to investigate and help. One weekend we spent in a hospital waiting room on a family matter, he'd hop up every time someone with a wheelchair or walker came by. By Sunday afternoon, he was exhausted on the floor. But every time someone looked at him, he'd hop up tailing wagging to meet them for about 30 seconds and then plop down next to them. There are several dozen people that he seems to remember because he gets excited and then acts in a particular manner. In one of the senior centers he visits, one lady was out in the hospital for awhile. He sniffed at her usual chair and then tried to pull my wife down toward her room to find her. One older man who petted him a lot had a stroke and lost some vision. He went up to his wheelchair and started nuzzling his hand.
He's the first dog I've seen that actually uses mirrors and does not bark at them. We stayed in a hotel with a floor length mirror when he was a puppy. He mostly ignored it, until he saw me looking at him in it. I then alternated looking directly at him and in the mirror and he kept following the eye contact. We have a few decorative mirrors by our back door. He alternates between looking out the door window and over at the mirror (which gives a different view of the outside) when he knows someone is outside. He sometimes watches parts of nature shows on TV.
He likes to go sit out on our patio, watch the world go by, and take naps. He has no prey drive to speak of and just enjoys watching squirrels and rabbits. I didn't get a picture of it, but one day he was near by the patio fence watching a rabbit about 10 feet away eating clover. They were just looking at each other.
I could go on and on, but I think this makes the point. This is one special dog that has become a big part of our family. It saddens us to see the gray hair starting to come in and realize he's probably over halfway through his life.
This picture is our grand daughter hugging the "puppy". If I had to make the call, I'd sacrifice him in an instant to save her. He's a magnificent noble soul that is a big part of our lives. But for me, my grand daughter is simply that much more valuable.