Sam Merlotte

Sam Merlotte is a fictional character from The Southern Vampire Mysteries/Sookie Stackhouse Series by author Charlaine Harris. Sam lives in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, and is the owner of a bar named Merlotte's. Sam has strawberry blond hair with blue eyes. He is both a close friend of and the employer of mind-reading barmaid Sookie Stackhouse. Sam is a shape shifter. His biological mother was a shifter as well as his brother. He is a shape-shifter in that he can take the form of any animal; although his preferred shape is that of a collie, he can change into any animal he has seen. On nights when the moon is full, Sam - like all shapeshifters - feels a strong urge to change; the rest of the time he can do it at will. In the eighth book during the were war, instead of turning into a collie as usual, Sam unexpectedly changes to a lion to protect Sookie. It is said that the enemy werewolves were even frightened to challenge him due to his now great strength, though he is eventually challenged by the enemy pack leader, who initially jumps on his back but proves to be no real challenge as he defeats her with little effort and then goes on to kill more werewolves brutally, as Sookie watches now under Claudine's protectio