what do you think modern Matthias’ favorite dog breed would be??? or time period accurate if you have a knowledge of what breeds might’ve been around at the time, I feel like a husky or wolf dog would be obvious answer (and maybe the correct one) and I tend to default to those but I’m definitely curious what you think, personally I think he would have a preference for big dogs but will absolutely defend the fact little dogs aren’t inherently evil, just mistreated due to their size
okay, soooo the dude treats his giant direwolf as a puppy in canon, so i don’t think he would separate dogs by size or breed. a puppy is a puppy to him. unfortunately, i do not have a single clue what breeds swedish people had in the 17th century, so i’m not going to pretend to be the historical dog scholar of tumblr dot com.
a wolfdog feels like the obvious answer all the time, and maybe it’s the right one but for modern matthias, i think trassel would absolutely be a rescue dog. and definitely a reactive dog. (i really don’t know what breed because my dog breed knowledge begins and ends with the popular ones)
i know i have said this a couple million times, trassel is already reactive in canon, and matthias carries that same motif in human form. reactive doesn’t mean evil. it means there is a history under that growl. something taught the animal to brace first, warn first, snap first if warning doesn’t work. and because people rarely have patience for frightened things that look dangerous, they punish the reaction instead of asking what trained it into them. they stay away. they lock it up. they call it dangerous. they leave it to rot, or they kill it, and then act like the animal proved them right.
so yes, matthias is definitely the owner of a reactive rescue. all that sitting with them in the cage, building trust, turning his back so they don’t feel challenged, waiting for them to come closer on their own terms. that’s literally his whole emotional skillset.