One of my aunts, back in Ukraine, years ago (when I was still under 6 years old) used to have a German Shepherd. Well, according to every adult whom you'd ask, supposedly that dog was mean and capable of biting even his owner. One day, my 4 or 5 year old self decided it's be fun to crawl into his dog house (they kept him outside because like I said, they were afraid of him biting people). When my aunt saw me in his dog house from the window she screamed bloody murder "Ahhh!!! Get that child out of there! She's going to get hurt!!" Meanwhile, I'm sitting there with the dog like "aww, cute doggy". Lol. He didn't touch me. He could sense I was just a child and he didn't harm a single hair on my head. I still believe to this day that he was never as mean as people thought he was. He had good instincts.