Anyone here have a Great Dane?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hello Everyone,
I have been begging my wife for almost two years now for a Great Dane. Tonight we get to go look at some 9 week old puppies! However, my wife has made it clear we can only look, I am not allowed to take one home yet. She says that we “need a bigger yard and house for a Great Dane”.

I have tried to tell her that from everything I read, Danes really don’t need a giant yard to run in. Our house is good sized, 4 bedroom and the back yard is decent although it isn’t an acre or anything. Those of you that own a Great Dane, any advice or things to be aware of?

I know she said we can only look, but my birthday is tomorrow, so maybe she will have some pity on me. A man can dream can’t he?

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Get the dog you dream of AND save a life.

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We owned a Great Dane, and no, they do not need a very large amount of space. An average yard is fine. They are not particularly active dogs by nature once full grown, and in the house they are quite lazy - pretty much sofa dogs. They don’t need a lot of room inside, either.

Things to remember:

Training: they are so big they really NEED to be well trained, not just a brief puppy class but a good obedience training grounding.

Teething: Because they are so big, the need to chew during teething is magnified.
Make sure you have lots and lots and lots of teething toys for that stage. Our Dane was pretty much a giant beaver during that stage and would have happily destroyed several pieces of furniture if we hadn’t kept an eye on things.

Reach: these are not just big dogs, they’re tall dogs, full grown. Don’t keep anything on the countertop you don’t want the dog to get. We learned quickly not to leave food out, even for a few minutes.

In general, Danes are good-natured, laid-back pets who get along well living in a household with people. They do not live long - ten years at most. They can be prone to both hip problems and bloat. All that being said, I would still have another one if the opportunity presented itself.

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I have looked at the rescues and have considered it, but a couple of points have me looking toward the puppies.

1: The puppies are already here and if they aren’t adopted, then they will by default end up in a rescue. The person selling the pups is not a puppy mill breeder, but a local lady who has two Danes.

2: Danes from what I have read have a short life span for dogs. Averaging about 7 or 8 years. Most of the rescued Danes are older dogs, most 3 to 4 years old. I love my animals and would certainly like to have more than 3 or 4 years with them. This is my biggest motivation to get a pup.

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Are you able to articulate what attracts you to this particular breed when you’ve never had one before?

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Sure, I have been around them and they seem like the most loving dog I have ever encountered. When I was a tech at BellSouth I went to this home one day to do jack work. I had to get down on my knees to work on all the jacks in the home. The Dane at the house followed me from room to room, looking over my shoulder. I immediately fell in love with the breed and have wanted one ever since. I have had Shepherds, Labs, Bassets and even a Pom. But my love has always been the Dane.

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[moderating]
Moved thread to IMHO.
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I agree with GythaOgg on all counts. Between my sisters and I, we’ve had 4. The most dangerous part of the dog is the tail-- sweep, sweep to clear a table or take you down at the knees. :slight_smile:

They are not huge eaters (for their size).

They do best with daily walks but will be fine if confined to a small yard or inside at other times. They are short haired so they are not outside dogs in cold weather and prefer to be inside in all weathers.

One day you’ll be tempted to take him running. Don’t be surprised when you’re running as fast as you can and he’s logging a gentle trot.

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GythaOgg pretty much said it all.

I have never owned one but two of my best friends do, and have, for years. One shows hers (but doesn’t breed them.)

Bloat is a big concern. Look it up and have a bloat kit on hand, understand what the signs are!

They are fairly low-energy, you do not need a big yard as long as you commit to regular walkies and exercise. Most dogs don’t take advantage of a big yard anyway - I have four dogs, all fairly high-energy, and a humungous yard. But they go out there, pee, poop, play for maybe two minutes, then want to be back inside where I am. They basically don’t get exercise in the yard - I have to provide that because I am the Provider of All Things Fun and Good.

Since this woman with the puppies isn’t doing it right, be aware that Danes are prone to joint problems, skin problems/allergies, deafness (don’t choose a puppy that is mostly white with some merle, or who has a white face and ears) along with bloat. Also they can be very fussy eaters. The two Dane people I know feed raw, not kibble/pellets because the latter simply didn’t work well.

Funny story: I took one of my dogs to an agility trial (she wasn’t competing yet) just to get her out and about. She was just coming out of her first heat. She is a smallish dog. Met a friend there who was with her Great Dane, an intact male who was competing that day. I was sitting on the ground with my small, apparently extremely attractively-smelling girl dog when my friend’s mostly impeccably-trained infatuated 150 lb dog hiked his leg. On my back. I was absolutely drenched with Great Dane urine. A call was put out for dry tee shirts, baby wipes, towels, etc and much hilarity ensued.

Everything is bigger with big dogs, including vet bills, general maintenance (fleas, HW protection), pee and slobber production…

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My daughter’s family currently has one and has had them in the past. They think they are lap dogs. They are very gentle and adore affection; I understand your desire to have one. They have jowls and tend to drool and slobber though.

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Having looked after a few on-and-off (but never for more than a few months at a time), the ones I’ve seen (3 years old and older) could live in a mid-sized flat if they had enough exercise. Half an hour’s walk in the morning, an hour walking and in the dog park in the afternoon, and when they were home they’d settle in and barely move for the rest of the day.

The only caveats are that they need that exercise in order to settle down, regardless of what you had planned and what the weather’s like, and they don’t care much for walking in the rain. They tended to be really social dogs, and happiest at the dog park. Oh, and say goodbye to anything that used to be growing in the moonscape that used to be your back yard. One pair of them dug up a three metre tall tree.

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If you’ve waited this long, I would wait a little longer. Danes are prone to several health problems that careful breeding reduces. Look for a truly responsible breeder, and then spend plenty of time talking to them about what owning one is like. A good breeder will answer all your questions so much better than anyone on here can (not that we don’t have a great brain trust!).

Please don’t encourage this woman’s awful practice by buying a puppy from her.

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It is possible to get puppies from rescues.

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I missed what “awful practice” this breeder was supposedly up to… Not running a puppy mill? raising the pups indoors (where they’ll be socialized) and adopting them out at 9 weeks instead of 6-8 weeks (too young), she doesn’t sound too awful to me.

Great Danes are awesome, but make sure you’re ready for all that drool. And lots of wear and tear on your furniture and carpet. Expensive too. Those guys eat a lot of food. And they’re STRONG. They require a real effort when it comes to training, and it’s really not optional with a dog that size.

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I had a great dane when I was a very small child. I used to ride it like a pony. It was the best dog ever. If you can swing it, I totally recommend Great Danes.

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Of all the danes I’ve known (3 belonging to my sisters, 1 of my own, numerous ones met on the street/dogpark), only one drooled. They aren’t as drooly as some other large breeds like mastiffs.

It’s true that everything is more expensive at the vets. A broken toe (!) cost over $1,000. Everything is ramped up. Besides bloat (always allow 1 hour between exercise and food) they are subject to joint/bone problems. Read up on all potential problems.

Females generally weigh 125+, males weigh 140+.

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Burt Ward, (Robin from TV’s Batman) runs a giant breed rescue called Gentle Giants in Califormia. He claims that feeding their food and their schedule (5 times a day for adult dogs, 7-8 times a day for puppies) can double the lifespan of Great Danes. Here’s his (very poorly designed) website.

StG

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Ours drooled a lot - though not as badly as the St. Bernards I grew up with - and this was exacerbated by his habit of flapping his ears to get our attention. (We didn’t have his ears cut.) At the time we had him, I was working nights and to wake me up to be let out during the day he learned he could flapflapflapflap at me and it would wake me up. Years after he died (in his sleep at 9 years old, probably of a heart attack) we were still finding dried Dane slobber on the ceiling!

They can be quirky dogs. And no kidding on the vet bills. Ours had a habit of eating socks and pantyhose - for some reason he thought these were the most delicious thing EVER and would swallow them whole. I had to lock up the dirty laundry. One day he did get hold of a pair of my white nursing support hose and ate them and developed a complete intestinal blockage. The surgery wasn’t cheap. The vet offered me the pantyhose back and I refused to take them, LOL.

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Well, this story may not be particularly moot to the issue as to whether its a good idea to get a big dog like that, but I am certainly reminded…

I had a friend who had a small house, with a small yard and she also had an English Mastiff. Big dog. Really, really big dog! His name was Clyde. His enormous size was not really an issue for her usually. Clyde was content to hang around the house all day, he was well trained and would get a nice long walk when she got home from work.

But one day, while she was off at work, Clyde got hurt. Not badly, just a little hurt. Somehow, he managed to snag his oar sized tail on something in the house and cut it. And it bled. It was not a major cut, but like many small cuts do, it bled a lot.

When she got home from work that day to her nice, neat little small house she described it as looking like a crime scene. There were blood smears all over the floor and on the walls (about knee height!) and on the furniture! Because the dog thwacking that little cut on its tail against everything throughout the day, well - it kind of inhibited that normal blood clotting factor.

She was horrified, but eventually relieved to find that Clyde was not badly injured at all. The house got cleaned up and the cut was properly treated and bandaged - but she swears it took some years off her life! :eek:

Sometimes, size matters! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Veterinarian checking in. If you get a Dane, please take your veterinarian’s advice on feeding and NOT a breeder’s. Please especially do not take advice from anyone who advocates feeding raw food to a puppy. Large breed dogs such as danes have very particular nutritional needs to ensure proper long bone development and the ratio of calcium to phosphorus is particularly critical to help avoid angular limb deformities and other developmental orthopedic diseases. Feeding large breed specific formulations of puppy food and controlling weight gain are CRITICAL.

They are also, unfortunately, prone to osteosarcoma, a nasty bone cancer. And as mentioned above, bloat. But they are sweet, sweet dogs, and I’d say the life span is really more like 9-10 years these days.