Epicyon Haydeni, an actual dog you could probably ride into battle, if it didn't eat you first.

@MechawolfSexyWife I love big dogs. I would like to have a bear. We rescued horses for
about 10 years. The biggest one was a retired roping horse that must have been pumped
full of drugs, because of all the muscle he was huge at about 1,600lbs With a normal
healthy diet he lost about 300-400lbs and looked normal.

@MechawolfSexyWife I was just reading is that some of the largest specimens were probably the size of a grizzly bear. Source: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-vertebrate-fossils/species/epicyon-haydeni/#:~:text=Epicyon%20haydeni%20is%20a%20late,et%20al.%2C%201999).

@LordShadowfire I don't know, can we trust Florida? :-D

I was just going by a quick scan of the Wikipedia sources. I do hope this is true though.... Regardless, let's get to cloning and restoring these lovable critters!

@LordShadowfire So, I read through the Florida source, and it appears that info about them being the "size" of a grizzly is indeed from 1999 and maybe a bit misleading. Updated info from 2008-2010 (including a piece by Wang and company, who wrote the 1999 piece) holds to the smaller body projection of around 300 pounds, though they appeared to have had long bodies, and that length is on par with grizzly body length. So probably half the weight of a grizzly, similar body length, power level.... unknown. I'm going to need someone with a scouter device to check that out.

@MechawolfSexyWife Okay, so what I'm hearing is that my search for a rideable dog mount continues.

@LordShadowfire Don't ever let the dream die!

@MechawolfSexyWife So maybe a cross between Bear and Wolf, or Mountain Lion and Bear?