So You Want A Great Dane

I've read this, that and the other thing by so-called experts on Great Danes ALL over the web.  Most of these individuals are nothing more than what I am:  a person that owns a dog or dogs that are of the Great Dane breed.

I have 2 pure-breds and 1 mix.  They all have very, VERY different personalities.  They are wonderful, awesome dogs!! But, like any dog, they also have their peculiarities and sometimes even annoyances.

One of my Danes must follow me everywhere.  His feelings are visibly hurt if I want him to go lay down instead of his face in my face constantly.  The dog knows no limits to his loyalty to be at my side, either.  Yesterday,  I crawled under my house to get at some electrical wiring.  When I say crawl, I mean I was on my belly sliding underneath pipes and conduit and such.

Who was RIGHT behind me?  Yup, Prince, the black Great Dane.  I didn't call him to come follow me under there, the first time I went under the house I had no idea a dog that large could even FIT underneath all of that.  Not Prince. He was on his belly, pushing himself along with giant and rather powerful rear legs and followed me right along.  When I got to where I needed top be under there, he came right up beside me, took a comfortable position and just laid there, staring at me.  I couldn't, of course, help but pet him for a bit and then, back to work.

Meanwhile, Duke, my other Dane, was up there, whining away. He desperately WANTED to be with us, but he wasn't even going to try crawling under there.  The Dane mix?  Wanted nothing to do with it.  She went about her business, but, then again, she isn't a pure Dane, so I'll keep this conversation to the purebred Danes.

I do agree, just from my experience with these 2 Danes and another Dane we had when I was a teenager: they want to be with you - people - all the time, as much as possible.  People tell me when I leave, Prince, makes horse like noises and trots and prances back and forth for hours.  Leave for work, that is.  When I come home?  He is RIGHT there, waiting for me. So are the other 2, to be fair.

Danes want attention, that's the jist of it.  They want a lot of attention. They are nothing but big, giant babies.  I'm quite serious, that's just what it is.  If they don't get enough attention, from my perspective, they get their feelings hurt.  Prince will start making his horse noises in my house when I tell him to lay down.  It isn't barking, it isn't loud, it's an objection.  I object to you telling me to lay down when I want you to pet me, continously, the entire time you are here.

Oh, btw, I have a doggy door in my house.  When I am gone, I am told they do NOT come in here much.  Yup, they are out there, waiting for me to come home.  Umm, but now it's getting cold outside and I suspect that if I ask again, they're going to say they are coming inside.  Why?  They simply cannot handle cold weather.  I just ordered some sweatshirts for them on a Cyber Monday Walmart sale, it's going to be in the 20's tonight, very cold.  My dogs NEVER sleep outside unless they are sick, ie: throwing up or diarhea.   They sleep in my bedroom and yes, they have their own bed.  Actually, I have a bed and pillows on the floor. One bed does not fit all of them.

They are heavy dogs, they really should not be left to sleeping on hard floors.  Duke is 143 pounds and Prince is 132 pounds.  Hey, do YOU want to sleep on the "raw" floor all the time?  Didn't think so.

Food? Yup, they eat.  No, they are not fat or obese.  I never have and never will allow my dogs to get fat.  I do go through a lot of dog food, but, I have 4 dogs, 2 of them VERY large.  The Dane mix would be considered large, not very large.  about 40 pounds of dog food per week plus scraps.  Oh, and btw, be prepared to clean up some giant dung in the back yard.

I could go on, but 1, it is my bedtime and 2, it's only a surface scratch at what it's like to live with Great Danes.  I will write again about what it's like actually living with Great Danes versus "professional" sites that just give overviews. Not that those are bad sites, just don't give an up and close, personal reality of what it is to live with them day in and day out.

Monday 11/29/2010

Monday

Get up this morning - 38 degrees. I didn't have the heat on, no. It isn't cold under the covers. Go to bathroom, turn on hot water - comes out - cool by the time it's running "hot". No clue. Get in, shock and awe, jump out freezing. 

Get dressed - I had turned the water heater breaker off when I was working on the electrical stuff yesterday. On the way out this morning, one of the dogs catches the phone wire and yanks it right out of the wall. Wonderful. That supplies the internet. Left a note for Kirby - he uses the internet during the day in combination with a side business he runs. Get a new phone line if you must have internet and I will reimburse you.

What else was I going to do? They don't cost that much, that isn't the problem, I don't happen to have an extra 25 foot line laying around.

Get to work. They left the heat on all weekend long. Not a problem, per se, just a waste of electricity when no-one is here. Check the routing system - at least there is one delivery today, albeit small. Smack me in the face and welcome back to reality. Lol

Today is Cyber Monday. I am only looking for one thing - doubt I will find it on sale though. That would be Windows 7 Home Premium. I will be checking the usual suspects and then go on beyond those to see if anything is out there. 

Here's the biggest news I've found today: Leslie Neilson died. That guy was hilarious, especially in that Airplane! movie. Okay, so there is this newest leak of "Diplomatic Cables". Who cares. I don't. The rest of the world shouldn't either. Unless there's classified stuff in there, that is. The biggest rumblings is that there are some "untoward" statements about leaders of other nations all over the world.

I'm sure they talk s*** about us, too, again, who cares. Well, I'll be reading about that further/in-depth later on today. 

As for now, it's time to get offa here and bounce back into the working world.

G'day.

ben