At the height of the Cold War, the Russians and the Americans had got together and decided that the only way to resolve matters was by way of a dogfight. Whichever country lost the fight would lay down its arms. To prepare for the contest, each country had five years in which to breed the world's meanest fighting dog.

Russian experts set to work with a vengeance, rounding up the biggest, nastiest Dobermans and Rottweillers and breeding them with Siberian wolves. They took only the strongest puppy from each litter and made sure that it received all the milk, even at the expense of the rest of the puppies. After five years they came up with a truly fearsome beast - a dog that no human dared approach and which had to be kept in a cage behind five-inch thick steel bars. The Russian dog was a killing machine.

Come the day of the fight, the Russians paraded their awesome animal and waited to see what kind of dog the Americans would offer as a challenger. To the Russians' amazement and amusement, the American handler was walking a nine foot long dachshund. The Russians couldn't believe that after five years, the most brutal hound the Americans could come up with was an elongated sausage dog.

The two animals were left alone in the ring. The Russian dog snarled and growled at its opponent but the American dog simply waddled forward and swallowed it whole.

The Russians were distraught. They said to the Americans: 'Our best scientists have spent five years developing this brutal dog, crossbreeding with wolves. We thought it was unbeatable.'

'Well,' said the Americans, 'we had our best plastic surgeons working for five years to make an alligator look like a dachshund.'