Yet another dog sign! Yay! The sign in question here is a warning about a guard dog, located next to an entrance to a private property. The sign depicts a silhouette of what I think is an English Bulldog1, a breed which according to Wikipedia is "often used as a symbol of ferocity and courage [...]". This symbol of ferocity is facing directly and attentively at the viewer and the text states "Beware of the guarding dog!"2,
This is a sign that I actually came across quite near to the area where I first studied dog signs in detail. So this sign caught me by surprise as I had thought it rare to have signs that actually warn about dogs in these types of neighborhoods. The signs more often aimed to affect the acts of people walking their dogs. For context, this neighborhood is a quite similar, though somewhat larger, neighborhood where there are both older houses and modern apartment buildings. Besides the bigger size, this neighborhood does also have a train station, meaning more "outsiders" moving in the area.
Based on a singular data point it is hard to say what this more threatening message says about this neighborhood, especially as the sign seems to be faded in colors and in a state of disrepair. But it is an interesting data point, and I hope to get a chance to study that neighborhood in detail as well at some later point.
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To me this breed of a dog is just "the dog from Tom & Jerry". ↩
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A more common expression might be "Beware of the guard dog!" (Varo vartiokoiraa!) but the "Varo vartioivaa koiraa!" means "Beware of the dog which is guarding [right now]." instead of "Beware of this dog which is a guard dog." I am not sure if this is just a random choice of a phrase or if the sign poster wanted to emphasize that the dog here is not a guard dog per se, but rather their generic dog who has taken up guarding duties for now. ↩