About the Size of It
The Great Dane is physically one of the largest canine breeds with a zest for life that frequently exceeds even their giant size, according to people who own them. On occasion, their need to be just plain silly also exceeds their stature, according to these same folks.
“I love this breed because of the way they make me laugh,” says Lisa Mason, whose dogs are Hope (Lakaya’s My Heart’s Hope CD PCD BN RAE THDN CGCA CGCU TKN), Sunny (Dancing with Danes Sunny Nahum CD PCD BN RE THD CGTCA TKN) and Riddick (Dancing With Danes Riddick Lucius BN RI CGCA TKN). “I love the way they sit on the sofa, hog the bed, put their butts through the wall running in from outside too fast, and get at anything you try to put out of reach. They are so full of love, silliness and just have a real zest for life.”
Hope (Lakaya’s My Heart’s Hope CD PCD BN RAE THDN CGCA CGCU TKN), one of Lisa Mason’s Great Danes, takes the bar jump at the Great Dane National Specialty. (Phyllis Ensley Photography)
Ashley Gandees agrees that Great Danes are extremely eager to please, and love being involved in absolutely every aspect of their owners’ lives.
“The joke in our house is that they are the best ‘assistants’ for anything you do,” laughs Gandees, whose current dogs are Dazzle (Int’l Ch AKC Ch Sevenhawk’s First Wish Upon a Lucky Star BN RI FDC CA DCAT SWA SCE SHDN RATO DS CGCA TKA ATT), Twinkle (GCh Int’l Ch U-Ch Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star V Saravilla RI FDC DCAT SWN SHDN TT THDN CGCA CGCU TKA) and Vinny (U-Ch Int’l Ch Sevenhawk’s First Failure to Launch FDC CA BCAT RATO DS CGCA CGCU TKA ATT). “Whether that’s chopping vegetables for a salad, fixing a pipe under the kitchen sink, pulling weeds in the yard or washing the car, they are glued to your side and ready to ‘help.’ Great Danes are a breed that truly loves life.”
Dazzle (Int’l Ch AKC Ch Sevenhawk’s First Wish Upon a Lucky Star BN RI FDC CA DCAT SWA SCE SHDN RATO DS CGCA TKA ATT), one of Ashley Gandees’ Great Danes, has snuffled up a rat at a barn hunt.
Great Danes have been successful in a wide range of dog sports because of their willingness to partner with their handler and the zest they have for life, according to Kim Cameron, whose dogs are Phoebe (Ch. Holledanes Thunderstruck BN CD CGC CTCA TKN NW1 RN RL1 THDA), Rita (DATS My Lost Shaker of Salt BN RA CGC CGCA CGCU TKI THD BCAT ATT) and Rion (Memore N Whisky Mac’s Hunter of the Stars BN RI CGC CGCA TKI), all of which are also certified Alliance of Therapy Dogs.
“They want to please and enjoy doing things with their people,” Cameron says. “If socialization and training start early, they are steady and willing. But when training, you have to be mindful of their body structure and keep the training fun.”
Heavy-handed training doesn’t work well with Danes, she stresses, adding that as a general rule, they do not like to repeat the same exercise multiple time. Cameron’s magic number is three, “and then we move on to the next exercise. There’s also lots of playtime in training for my dogs.”
Obi Wan (RACH Lazy Days Force Awakens CDX BN RM2 RAE3 NA OAJ SWN SCNE CGC TKN), one of Shirley Spall’s Great Danes, does some off-lead heeling at the 2021 AKC Classic obedience trial.
Shirley Spall, who owns Obi Wan (RACH Lazy Days Force Awakens CDX BN RM2 RAE3 NA OAJ SWN SCNE CGC TKN), Rey (Lazy Days A New Hope BN RI CGC TKN) and Yoda (Lazy Days Master Jedi Yoda UD RAE2 AX AXJ HTM/MF), says the biggest challenge in training any of her dogs has been making sure she are actually giving them the information they need to succeed.
“It never ceases to amaze me that what is obvious to me doesn’t always translate to being obvious to the dogs,” she says.
Rey (Lazy Days A New Hope BN RI CGC TKN), another of Spall’s Great Danes, showed everyone what a clever dog looks like finishing the companion dog title with a blue ribbon.
Case in point is Obi Wan, who is currently doing both agility and obedience.
“When we started, I was teaching him directional commands such as ‘left’ and ‘right’ for the directed jumping in Utility. No issues there!” Spall explains. “Then I added directional commands to agility, as he frequently is ahead of me. Again, no problem. But, on the directed retrieve in Utility, he became confused when I added a second glove.”
While this is not really an unusual problem for a dog learning the Utility exercises, it dawned on Spall that she could possibly use directional commands to simplify the exercise for him. “Sounds good, right?”
But, like many ideas that sound good but aren’t good when put into practice, that was the point where things started going south.
“We did the left pivot for glove number three, and I said, ‘Take it, right,’” Spall remembers. “He sat back and gave me a look that said I had totally lost my mind. So, I gave the command again and stepped forward to indicate that he should go. He left my side, turned right, took the jump on my right, wrapped the jump, went out, picked up glove number three, took the jump on my right again, wrapped the jump again and did a perfect front presenting me with the glove. I was speechless.”
Needless to say, Spall quit training the directed retrieve until she could figure out what had happened. “I finally realized that the commands ‘left’ and ‘right’ had always included a jump up to that point in his training. So, his actions actually were a brilliant decision on his part. What I did to eliminate his confusion was name each glove, one, two or three.”
So far, so good as Spall hasn’t had a repeat performance of Obi Wan taking a jump on the directed retrieve. “But this is the fun and challenge of training,” she enthuses. “I love seeing them thinking!”
Twinkle (GCh Int’l Ch U-Ch Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star V Saravilla RI FDC DCAT SWN SHDN TT THDN CGCA CGCU TKA), another of Gandees’ Great Danes, hops over a jump at a rally event.
Great Danes can also be opinionated, as Gandees discovered with Dazzle.
“We joke that Dazzle chooses what sport is ‘in style’ this season,” Gandees says. “When she shows an interest in a sport, she’s all in, and when it’s no longer new and exciting for her, she puts a hard stop to it.”
In dock diving, Dazzle was jumping from the competition-height dock on her second lesson. Vinny, her brother, took eight months to build his confidence to the point where he would jump competitively. Dazzle, on the other hand, was full speed ahead and jumping higher and farther every time. In 2021, Dazzle and Vinny were among the top 10 Danes in distance jumping.
Then, without any apparent reason, Dazzle suddenly didn’t want to jump anymore, no matter how much Gandees tried to coax or entice her.
“She is happy to enter the pool and swim, but no jumping,” Gandees says. “We had similar, though less dramatic, experiences with barn hunt and scent work. Eventually, after a few months off, she comes back with renewed interest and performs better than ever. We just had to learn to wait her out.”
Vinny, on the other hand, had a different issue. “He is otherwise the most confident and self-assured dog, but when it came to jumping off the dock, he was literally struggling to ‘make the leap.’ We could see him progress in every class, getting a little braver as he became more comfortable with the pool, the entry ramp and the lower height ‘mini dock.’ He would get very excited to run the length of the dock and then launch off the entry ramp. After a few months he would run and jump off the mini dock.”
Then, one day, after eight months of coaxing, Vinny ran full speed down the 40-foot dock, came to a dead stop at the end and jumped nearly straight up in the air to belly-flop into the pool about two feet from the edge of the dock.
“He was very proud of himself for accomplishing this, finally, all by himself,” Gandees says.
Vinny (U-Ch Int’l Ch Sevenhawk’s First Failure to Launch FDC CA BCAT RATO DS CGCA CGCU TKA ATT), owned by Gandees, launches after his “lure” at a dock-diving event.
She adds that in her view, this is an important factor in building a resilient sport dog. “We could have easily forced Vinny into the pool from day one and made it a task or command, but in doing so, he never would have enjoyed it. He would only have been jumping because he was told to jump. By keeping things positive and letting him go at his own pace, he is a stronger partner and competitor in any sport we do.”
Mason found training Great Danes was different than what she had been accustomed to with German Shepherds, her previous breed.
“Danes bring their sense of humor and joy of life to the training experience, so it’s not unusual for them to decide to have some playtime during training,” explains Mason, who says there have been “interesting” issues with all three of her Danes. “With all of them, while learning the recall, they have come barreling in and crashed into me. I learned to brace myself, and at one fun match, the judge actually laughed and told the gallery that he had just witnessed an assault. Another common issue has been them paying attention to things going on outside the ring instead of paying attention to me.”
Sunny (Dancing with Danes Sunny Nahum CD PCD BN RE THD CGTCA TKN), another of Mason’s Great Danes, finishes an exercise at the Great Dane National in 2021. (Great Dane Photos)
With Hope, the problem has been harnessing her high energy. With Sunny, it was the backward heeling in rally. But Riddick has been Mason’s biggest challenge.
“He wouldn’t come on a recall,” Mason says. “He would wander off midway to me. Then he progressed to making it to the front, but would immediately break off and do zoomies. It took a year of practice adding a few steps of distance at a time and occasionally, a few steps closer if he started breaking. Of all the titles my other dogs and I have earned, that first qualifying score in beginner novice with him made me cry because we stuck to it and never gave up.”
Riddick (Dancing With Danes Riddick Lucius BN RI CGCA TKN), another of Mason’s Great Danes, on the rally course at the 2021 Great Dane National. (Phyllis Ensley Photography)
The main obstacle for Cameron has been the breed’s size, though it has been a virtue as well.
“When we lost a Cocker Spaniel who was very special to us, I didn’t want another Cocker,” she says. “My husband worked out of town and my son was only 13. We had a neighbor who made me uncomfortable, so I wanted an intimidating breed that was also good with children, and that’s how we wound up with Great Danes. Clearly their sheer size is intimidating to many people.”
Kim Cameron’s Rion (Memore N Whisky Mac’s Hunter of the Stars BN RI CGC CGCA TKI) gets a little warmup in obedience before entering the ring.
But when Cameron started doing dog sports, she discovered that many are not really designed for giant breeds.
“Rally courses many times are not made for big dogs like Danes,” she says. “Rion is a big guy who weighs 165 pounds, so I have to be careful of the jump heights in obedience, and we are training for preferred, which has lower jump heights. Great Danes are also very strong, and when they get excited they can be hard to control, such as before a FastCAT run.”
But as always, Cameron reminds that you need to be able to read your dog and know what’s a good fit for both of you. “Learning to trust my dogs and know their personalities has built an almost human bond between us. They are my partners and friends,” she says. “They look to me for direction, instruction and safety. I love when we are participating in an event and our eyes meet. I see their intelligence and personality shining through. It’s almost as if they’re saying, ‘OK, let’s do this.’”
According to Gandees, one issue that has surfaced for the breed as a whole is the disparity between the structure and mentality of the dogs that excel in the show ring and the dogs that succeed in the various performance activities.
“A good Great Dane should look beautiful standing still and trotting around the ring while also having the mental acuity to scent out rats, the biddability and soundness to do rally or obedience, and the confidence to run in agility or lure coursing,” she says. “I’m hopeful that this will soon change as more breeder-owners who would traditionally just compete in the show ring are starting to branch out and gauge their dogs’ interest in other activities.”
Similarly, competitors who have historically chosen bloodlines that are known for performance rather than conformation are starting to compete in the show ring. “This blending of cultures should help unify the breed and leave the idea of ‘show’ or ‘performance’ bloodlines in the past,” Gandees concludes.