In
William Gibson's book,
Count Zero, a slamhound is a type of
assassination device.
A slamhound is a
dog, which has been heavily modified by surgery to contain
high explosives in place of its
internal organs. It's then fitted with sensory devices that heighten its sensitivity to
sight and
smell, and some sort of
interface device to allow the target's data to be
slotted in. Presumably it would be kept in some form of
hibernation until needed.. ( hard to feed a dog that dosent have
viscera. )
The slamhound is released in the general vicinity of it's
target. It uses its
heightened senses and
cyber-enhanced brain to find the
victim. When it tracks the target down, it basically just runs up to it and explodes. Pretty effective, considering one manages to take out the
main character, Turner, in the first two pages of the book. o_0
And Turner is the
token bad-ass of that novel.