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- "First model was about yay-high. I've been adding to him ever since."
- ―Alyx Vance[src]
Dog is Alyx Vance's "pet" robot, built by her father Eli to protect her when she was young and progressively enhanced since then.
Overview
Background
Dog is a robot, built by Eli Vance to protect his daughter Alyx when she was a child. Dog's original model was around one meter in height, but as Alyx grew older, she began adding upgrades and new parts to Dog, and he towers around 2.5 meters tall at the time of Half-Life 2.[1] Dog has a Zero Point Energy device, much like the Gravity Gun, built into his right hand so that he can pick up and throw things.
Dog's body is constructed largely of scavenged scrap metal, hydraulics and wires. He has what appears to be a scrapped Combine City Scanner for a head, though with only three flaps while normally Scanners have four. He is quadrupedal, walking on his knuckles like a gorilla, but can balance himself on his hind legs if it is needed, such as when he's lifting a heavy object.
Dog has incredible strength and is able to lift and move very large and heavy objects, even managing to lift up a section of the massive Combine Smart Barrier that surrounded the Citadel. He is able to pick up vehicles such as cars, vans, and APCs with ease, and can throw them long distances with great force and accuracy. He is also strong enough to physically tear apart large and powerful Synth enemies that would normally require heavy firepower to take down, such as Striders.
Appearances
Half-Life 2
Alyx and Dog in the Black Mesa East scrapyard.
Gordon Freeman is first introduced to Dog in the Black Mesa East scrap yard. As part of a tutorial on operation of the Gravity Gun, Alyx arranges a game of "fetch" between Gordon and Dog, using an inert Combine Rollermine as the ball, until they are interrupted by a Combine assault on the Resistance facility. After heading back inside, Dog reopens a sealed door into an abandoned tunnel leading towards Ravenholm for Gordon to aid his escape, after they both get separated from Alyx. While Gordon enters the tunnel, Dog stays behind to help Alyx and the others defend the lab.
Gordon meets Dog again after he and Alyx teleport from Nova Prospekt to Kleiner's Lab at the end of the chapter Entanglement. The company splits once more when Gordon and Dog set off to find Barney Calhoun, Alyx deciding to stay with Dr. Kleiner who refuses to leave without his pet Headcrab Lamarr. As the chapter Anticitizen One begins, Dog is quick to leave Gordon behind and charges at a nearby group of Overwatch troops outside the lab, picking up and throwing a wrecked car at them. He is then rammed into a wall by a Combine APC but quickly gains the upper hand, tipping the vehicle over before picking it up and hurling it into another group of soldiers. He then forces open a Combine Barricade gate at the end of the street for Gordon, allowing him to proceed. However, Dog is distracted by a landing Dropship and releases his grip on the gate, causing it to lock again behind Gordon, and attacks the deploying soldiers. Dog then attacks the departing Dropship, now without cargo, and ends up being carried away by the synth to the unknown.
Dog eventually manages to find Barney, and Gordon meets both of them in the square toward the end of the chapter "Follow Freeman!", in a scene where Dog, in the heat of the battle, knocks over a column topped with the large statue of a horse. As Barney reports to the player, Dog is probably aware of the fact that Alyx is already in the Citadel, and so tries to reunite with her, being completely uncontrollable by others. The last time Dog is seen in Half-Life 2 is when he once again opens a passage for Gordon, this time allowing him to proceed to the Citadel's foot, by lifting a heavy section of Combine Smart Barrier, uncovering an ancient sewer tunnel.
Half-Life 2: Episode One
Alyx conversing with Dog.
Episode One opens with Gordon lying in darkness, trapped under a pile of rubble. The sound of Alyx and Dog searching for him leaks through, and after lifting up a large slab of rock, Dog's head and eye appear through a hole. He seems elated, and quickly pulls aside the remaining rubble and lifts Gordon free.
After rescuing Gordon, Dog helps Alyx contact her father by radio, raising his arm in the air to use as an antenna and twisting his hand to get a better signal. After much deliberation, Alyx and Gordon decide to enter the Citadel, however they are blocked by a large ravine. Dog runs off into the rubble in search of something, and soon throws over the wreck of a large red van. He first calculates the distances by throwing a rock across the ravine, then lets Alyx know that her and Gordon are to climb into the van so that he can throw them over. Eventually Alyx concedes, telling Dog to go back to Eli after he has thrown them. Gordon and Alyx both get into the van and Dog then lifts it above his head, pauses for a few seconds, then successfully throws them across the dividing ravine. Dog is not seen again for the rest of the game.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Dog about to prove his strength against a Strider, as seen in the Episode Two trailer.
In Episode Two, Dog appears late in the game in the Outlands, when Gordon and Alyx have nearly reached White Forest. When the duo is forced to stop their car because of a gate, a Strider that was lying on the ground next to a crashed Dropship wakes up. Fortunately, Dog suddenly appears and takes down the Strider in an epic battle, with little regard for his own well-being. After narrowly avoiding being crushed multiple times, he manages to jump on the Strider's back, tears off its carapace and subsequently kills it by removing its brain.
Afterward, Dog challenges Gordon to beat him to the base in his car. If the player is able to beat Dog, Alyx will playfully mock Dog by saying "Better luck next time, slow poke." However, if Dog wins, he will dance around triumphantly. Dog is then left outside to help MIRT patrol the area while Gordon and Alyx continue on to meet Eli and Kleiner.
Towards the end of the game, after the closure of the Superportal, Dog appears once again. He greets Alyx but is distracted by something in the distance, and goes running off much to Alyx's dismay. Whilst Dog is gone, Eli, Gordon and Alyx go into the hangar to get to the helicopter, but are ambushed by Combine Advisors who kill Eli, inserting their appendage through the back of his neck, breaking his spinal column. Before the Advisors could kill Gordon and Alyx, Dog re-appears and saves them. He catches the Advisors off guard and manages to badly injure one of them by jumping on it and smashing it to the ground, whilst the other flees from his attacks relatively unscathed. As Alyx cradles her dead father, Dog leans over, watching in confusion and sorrow.
Half-Life: Alyx
Sketch of Dog in Half-Life: Alyx.
Inside Alyx's observation room are some designs of Dog during his various stages of construction. Alyx also has a photo of Dog in his earliest constructed form.
Following Alyx disappearing, Dog physically appears. He swings into the hangar, jumping off the helicopter and gives the crowbar to Eli, who hands it to Gordon before declaring they have a lot of work to do.
Personality and skills
Much like a real dog, Dog is very friendly, loyal, and has an intelligent and excitable personality. Similarly to Barney Calhoun, Dog provides comic relief throughout the games with his quirks and many strange and odd decisions, even dancing when he is looked at for a period of time. One of his main forms of emotive outlet is his eye, which has an aperture used in much the same way as the human eye to show feelings by opening and closing. His head flaps also move according to his mood. Dog makes friendly and playful noises such as beeps and whines, emulating the sounds made by a real dog, especially when he is around Alyx. Dog shares a very close relationship with Alyx, often asking her to play along with him. Alyx treats Dog much like a pet, calling him "boy" and using similar body language and voice as if talking to a real dog. She pats her upper thighs when calling him at Black Mesa East, and tells him to "fetch" when Gordon throws the Rollermine.
Where Dog differs from the average pet is his intelligence. Dog is a highly inquisitive and resourceful creature and is able to figure out solutions to problems, as unorthodox as they may be, such as throwing Gordon and Alyx across to the citadel via a wrecked car. Alyx also implies that Dog is able to perform calculations, where in the same situation she suggests that Dog has "done the math", though Dog quickly refutes this. Nevertheless, Dog and Alyx have a mutual trust and friendship which has grown over their years together which makes Alyx now trusts Dog's opinions and hunches, as crazy as they may sometimes appear.
Alyx and Dog at the foot of the Citadel.
Like a real dog, Dog is also very protective of his master and by extension those she holds dear, like Gordon Freeman or Eli Vance. When angered he can be a dangerous foe to those who anger him, using his immense strength and weight to smash enemies to the ground or tear them apart. Despite his seemingly haphazard construction, Dog is a highly durable combatant with strong offense and defense. Dog can withstand gunfire and powerful impacts without a visible scratch, and is able to use his strength to devastating effect against similarly durable targets like Combine synths. Dog is also highly flexible and agile which helps when dealing with enemies larger than himself. All of this in combination with his intelligence make Dog a very powerful asset for the Resistance that can take down powerful enemies which would normally take a huge amount of effort for humans to take down.
Behind the scenes
Concept art.
- Dog does not have any combat AI and all in-game fight scenes with him are scripted. If spawned through console he will just run away from any threat. If none are around he would find a small object and throw it at the player, as if playing fetch.
- As mentioned in the Half-Life 2: Episode One commentary, players' feedback towards Dog were very positive. As a result, Valve made him the first thing to be seen at the start of the next game.[2]
- Dog was one of the few Half-Life 2 concepts that went through very little revision before being finalized for the game. Designers were inspired by classic movie robots, such as Robby from Forbidden Planet.[3]
- Early texture sheets from the playable Half-Life 2 Beta show that Dog was to feature other colors, such as aqua blue, maroon, pink or green. His head was also to be made out of a scrapped Combot, the direct predecessor to the City Scanner.[4]
- One of Dog's concept designs in Alyx's apartment in Half-Life: Alyx is a reference to the robot dog in Valve's VR game The Lab.
Related achievements
Half-Life 2
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| Use Dog's ball to make a basket in the scrapyard. |
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
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| Beat Dog in a race to White Forest. |
Trivia
- Dog is not invincible. He simply has a huge amount of health. It is possible for him to die, but this can only be observed if the player spawns him using the console in a combat situation that he would not normally be involved in.
- If Dog takes damage, smoke effects will appear (Possibly reused from the cut Combine Guard).
- The aggressive roars that Dog makes when provoked are very similar to the Strider's audio.
- If the player hits or attempts to grab Dog with the supercharged Gravity Gun, corpses of Dog will appear as he is not supposed to be affected by it.
- Dog's name is completely capitalized in the descriptions of Half-Life 2's achievements.
Gallery
Pre-release
Retail
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2: Episode One
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Half-Life: Alyx
Miscellaneous
List of appearances
- Half-Life 2 (First appearance)
- Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (Spray only) (Non-canonical appearance)
- Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
- Half-Life 2: Episode One
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two
- Randolph the Red-Nosed Turret (Non-canonical appearance) (Mentioned only)
- Half-Life: Alyx
References
 The Half-Life Wiki has more images related to Dog.
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