we had shepherds when I was growing up, we had a silver and black male that was born bob tailed and guess what his name was.....? LOL Bob
Where we live we had several rattle snake dens in the area and they crossed right through our front yard a lot, so we needed as amny eyes watching out for them as possible, ole Bob killed a bunch of them, I would be out playing and he would find one and rip into it to protect myself and my brother, he was fortunate enough to always get bit on the head when he did, he would swell up and then he would heal up, never phased him to go into the next rattler he saw, he would only walk to the edge of our land and then stop, it's almost like there was an invisible barrier that only he saw and he would not take one stepo beyond that point no matter what, some idiot that was going through the country side and throwing out poison meat brought the end to ole Bob, nearly everyone in that whole area lost their dogs and several cats over that deal, freaking idiot was lacing meat with strychnine and was never caught, I think if I caught someone doing that, well lets just say he wouldn't have the guts to do that again.....!
Sorry about this I know it has nothing to do with the original question ask here and if you mods wish to can this post I understand, the dog post just got my attention and I got off on a rabbit trail, when my ole Bob came to mind.
Map
..In case you didn't guess that last part actually happened to me ! 
