Ye shall not pass!

I had a great 'dog moment' today. I was walking down Queen Street in Toronto, headed to my car. I turned a corner and there, lying down square in the middle of the sidewalk, was a very large Bulldog. I mean big. I started to laugh out loud as I approached him. He was so big that there was barely enough room to walk to either side of him. I was about two feet away from him when he raised his enormous, sad-eyed head and looked at me. I almost expected to hear him say, in Winston Churchill's gravelly voice 'You shall not pass'.
I laughed again and his nubbin of a tail began to wag. He didn't get up. That would've been wayyyy too much work. But he was very happy to have me bend over and give him a good neck rub. His owner came over and I asked him the dogs name. 'Shredder' he replied. Shredder. How perfect. I told him that I had owned a Bulldog as a kid and have always had a special slobbery place in my heart for the brutes. Then he told me he got the dog from a breeder just north of Oshawa...and the wheels began to turn. Hmmm?