I'm new to this group, and was hoping all you GD lovers can help me. My husband and I love Great Danes and have talked about getting one for a few months now (he has family members with them, so we've been around them a lot). Anyhow, I wanted to find a young adult, so we've been looking into rescue organizations. But, yesterday we heard of a one year old Blue male who owners have another Dane and two little dogs. They are downsizing and won't have room for all the dogs, so they are looking to sell the younger of the two. We have a Westie as well (who likes big dogs), and this just seemed like the perfect situation: a young adult who's housebroken, gets along with little dogs, doesn't jump fences, and is coming from a loving home. We went to see him yesterday, and what a great dog! He's really big, only 1 yr and already 130 lbs. This dog has a really, really wide head. Most of the blues I've seen have narrower heads. Could it be a mix or do some of them really do have massive heads?
My questions for all of you are:
1) what questions should I be sure to ask the owners? They said that he is AKC but they never sent in his papers...is this a problem if I'm not wanting to breed or anything?
2) What would you tell a non Dane owner who is thinking about getting one as far as what they would be getting into?
I love dogs and would love a Dane, but I just want to be wise about this. I want this Dane to be in the right place as mich as his owners do...can you help me?
My questions for all of you are:
1) what questions should I be sure to ask the owners? They said that he is AKC but they never sent in his papers...is this a problem if I'm not wanting to breed or anything?
2) What would you tell a non Dane owner who is thinking about getting one as far as what they would be getting into?
I love dogs and would love a Dane, but I just want to be wise about this. I want this Dane to be in the right place as mich as his owners do...can you help me?
-
Re: Great Dane Advice?
Tue, October 31, 2006 - 4:55 PM1) Even well behaved Danes can be tempted by treats/foods things just within nose reach, For Great danes--well a LOT is in nose reach in human houses. Make sure if you don't want them to have such self grabbed treats to work with them and train it out of them (if not already)
2) They have like many large dogs comparitively shorter life spans than many small dogs. This is something to consider at length.
3) I'm not sure about the head thing--I don't breed or raise them, but some dogs are bigger some smaller. My full grown dane is smaller than both her parents.
4) AKC paper work is probably only an issue if you plan to show or breed. If the Dane is just going to be a loved pet its doubtful to be important.
5) BIG dogs tend to have joint problems as they age.
6)Danes often want to sniff your face--they are often tall enough to do so---some wait for you to sit--others less well behaved one will try and jump on your shoulders, this can be trained positively away as well.
7) Danes are prone to hyperkinetic behaviour---from what people have said here they're called "the zoomies" where they run with mad abandon at high speed. So play with them regularly to keep them entertained.
8) They eat a lot. This is very much like adding another human to your household budget.
You might look around for more information via google--as I said I'm just a Dane owner (and this is my first and observations from that is what I'm sharing)
-
Re: Great Dane Advice?
Mon, January 29, 2007 - 10:24 PMHello and Welcome! I'm new to the tribe, as well as a new GD owner. I found an older (around 5) dane at a shelter and adopted him. Though I did a bunch of research before using dogbreedinfo.com. What I have experienced so far, is that my dane is very laid-back, very sweet and can definently get wild sometimes. Even though Hercules is extremely well-behaved, I did make the mistake of leaving cookies on the table overnight...needless to say, all of them were gone in the morning. I have noticed that my dane is extremely well behaved around my rather aggressive little cat. He doesn't seem to care about the cats at all, in fact. My dane, Hercules, also is very intellegent. It takes him only a day to learn a new trick. Herc is honestly the best possible dog I could have hoped for. And that is very awesome since I'm a first-time dog owner!
