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Our Great Friend the Great DaneGreat Danes are distinctive and well known in popular culture. There're a number of Great Dane characters you're sure to recognize, from Scooby-Doo to Astro from the Jetsons. Disney's movie Oliver and Company featured a Great Dane called Einstein, and the Swiss Family Robinson have Duke and Turk. There are more great Danes in popular culture than can even be listed in this space.
Great Danes have been successful in part because they are so unique. They are even shaped unlike any other breed of dog. Their bodies are long and lanky, but they are large and heavily muscled. They have a well known good temperament, inherited from the mastiffs, and a regal bearing.
Great Dane dogs are usually at least twenty-eight inches high at the withers. They weigh at least a hundred pounds, often more. This makes them on the small side for a mastiff. The English Mastiff, for instance, is the same height, but weighs at least a hundred and seventy-five pounds. This means that generally, Great Danes are perceived as being tall and lanky. They have long slender legs, and a squarish, broad-skulled head. Their muzzles are particularly blocky.
The most common coat color in Great Danes is fawn. Black masks also appear regularly. You may also routinely see Great Dane dogs with brindle, blue and black coats. Less common is the striking harlequin coloration, in which the dog is white with black patched distributed across the body. Another lesser seen color is mantle.
Though they are very large, Great Danes are not aggressive. They have been called "gentle giants," for their extreme tolerance. Because they are so affectionate with humans, they can be poor guard dogs, as they will be friendly even to strangers. However, they are very mild and tolerate annoyances well, making them good pets for older people and small children.
Around other dogs, Great Danes are not always so tolerant. This means that your Great Dane must have obedience and aggression training when it is young, to decrease the chance of it trying to dominate smaller animals. Even if you don't own any other pets, when you take your dog on walks, you will encounter other people's animals, and it is important that your dog know how to behave around them.
Many purebred dogs suffer from health issues associated with their breed, and great Dane dogs are no exception. They are prone to having a slow metabolism, like other breeds of mastiff. This makes them placid, and causes them not to need much exercise. However, inactivity can make them prone to suffer from hip dysplasia, weight gain, and congenital heart disease of a number of types. Like Dalmations, Great Dane dogs also have a high chance of losing their hearing as they grow older. |
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