I am not a big dog fan myself (many years as animal control officer will do that to ya) but if I did get a dog, it would definitely be an Akita. A dog bred for taking down Asian bears says alot about its badassity. Plus they simply look awesome.
Hell yeah - Akita's are all sorts of cool & bad-assery per(dog)onified
Even as tiny puppies...their paws are so huge that they look more like a bear paw than a dog paw - then you start thinking that they're going to grow into those suckers soon
Actually, since (I think) they resemble bears so much...my 1st one was named "
Kodiak" and I named my 2nd one "
Kuma-Ki" (99% sure that means "
bear spirit" in Japanese), since they're Japanese dogs...and...I was wanting to remember Kodiak (who was *often* just called "Kody", "Kody Bear", and/or "THE Kodiak Bear"); so yeah - Kody Bear and the next one "bear spirit"
ALL of my (and my family's while growing up) dogs are seen as, treated as, and loved more as family members than pets.
Unfortunately & sadly, as is pretty common w/ the larger breeds of dogs, they tend to have hip & joint problems & shorter lifespans than the smaller breeds...and when we had to put Kodiak down (at ~12 years old)...it was...tragic :'(