Well, I finally found Dogmeat...surrounded by the corpses of 5 raiders who apparently were scripted to start attacking him as soon as I hit the Scrapyard. GOOD dog, Dogmeat! GOOD dog!
I also almost lost Dogmeat (Not to mention myself) when I hit a car with a couple rounds...and it started setting off the other cars. Ouch. Luckily was in a clearing so I didnt get hit as badly as I could. I did make it a point to get out of the Scrapyard before the rest of the cars went out.
As for Sneak...I see that more as a Sniping skill rather then something for melee. Get close enough so they cant see you while you're lining up a shot. Especially nice for those tight corridors with the combat shotgun. Turn a corner, hit vats before it switches to Danger, and get those lovely called shots to the head. Mmmmm.
Also saw the strangest complaint about the game else where. Someone saying that Fallout 3's opener was stolen from Bioshock.

Nevermind it's a fairly close riff of the original Fallout 1's OP...well...it doesnt seem to be all that close to the Bioshock opener, except for the use of some old music.