Rastus - 110 kilos of love and affection. Rastus started out as a boarder. When we opened up in the kennels of a morning you could only hear one thing: the rhythmic beating of his tail against the door. When his owners moved to a small apartment we agreed to adopt him. Although the intention was that he would be just an outside dog he soon wheedled his way into the office and into our hearts.
He loved his daily walk through the vinyards raiding the vines when they were heavy with fruit as well as picking apples from the feral apple trees around the dam.
Our most enduring memory of him remains the way he would sit next to you and put his head on your lap while working.
Favourite story?  For a while we boarded a St Bernard - same size as Rastus and the two got on so well we left them together in the office.  We came into the office the following day and discovered that two had been playfighting and had managed to break about three of the low light windows - they must have just rolled through them.  They did not have scratch and thought it was great they had turned the office into one with not one but three doggy doors. 
The glazier came in his litttle van. Apparently he was scared of dogs at the best of times but these two simply thought the van was another playmate and jumped all around the fan covering the windows with their saliva.  We took the dogs for a long walk whilst the poor glazier did his work.
In the end he lived till he was 12 a good age for a mastif but all too short for us.