Having them set of mines in front of you is a pretty good idea, but being a dog (agile, four legs to distribute weight on), I wonder if light step or something similar might be implemented.

I don't know how effective any of these proposed tactics would actually be, come to think of it...

Your dog will be tagged as essential, yes - that doesn't mean he won't get "knocked out," though. So assuming you could attach an explosive to him and send him to attack an enemy and then detonate (which I doubt will be possible, see below,) he'd still be out of the action for the rest of the fight. Essential NPCs don't revive until after the current combat is over. (In Skyrim I'd often use the console to set certain NPCs as essential when I was given an escort mission, personally - it came in handy after I got tired of the AI just being dumb and getting them killed over and over again.)

Likewise, I'd imagine that using your dog as a mine-clearing device would get pretty tedious rather quickly - dog goes in, blows up a landmine, dies. Then you wait for him to revive and come back to you, you send him out and he blows up another mine, repeat. It's not like he'll be blowing up mines with impunity.

Anyway, attaching an explosive device to your dog would require mechanics that we don't have any evidence of them being in the game in the first place. Obviously, number one would be that there even exists a "sticky bomb" as an item that you could do this with. We know there's going to be grenades, but we don't have any evidence of a bomb that you can detonate remotely - which you'd need to have for this to work in the first place.

Presumably, we'll be able to order the dog to specific places or to attack specific enemies, so that part would work, sure - but I don't see us being able to use them as remote mines any time soon (discounting mods of course - but then that's always the answer to everything every time anyway.)

People read way to much into that. I for example and a very upbeat and generally considerate person. So when I play video games I want to do stuff that I don't get to do in real life and that is why I usually gravitate towards being a dike in these types of games. Not just because its something different but also because the [censored] dialogue lines are infinitely more entertaining than the typical good guy or neutral dialogue lines.

man I was hoping this was about putting armor on your dog

Yeah screw that pooch, if I ever use him it will be as bait I guarantee you.

So if your dog exploded would that make him a "hot dog"?

I get enough that when I play Battlefield. It's gonna be a hard pass from me.

Dog armor... Hey! Don't give them ideas!

(http://uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Horse_Armor_Pack)

I would on my evil character, Michael Vick, especially if the dog wasn't immortal. Also Beth (or mod) could add a dog farm to your settlement and raise dogs up to be fodder.

I can imagine PETA finding out about this thread. They'ed go nuts!