Wolf the Mechanical Dog

"It took a Mechanical Dog to flush the humans out. For all their tin noses, they seemed able to catch the scent of flesh and blood, and their piston legs were fast. Robondrans could only lumber, so stiff had their joints lately become. One human every five years was needed to keep an ordinary Robondran going, and two every year for the Great Robondra himself. So these days humans were in short supply"--Jacket flap.