Some updated images from this fall
Fall photos
Canine Hero
Nash, our Golden, saved another dog’s life!
There was a lost dog in our area and Nash found her yesterday, trapped in a large hole in a field next to our property. She had been missing for three days.
Late Sunday afternoon, I was on a walk on our acreage with Bing and Nash, when Nash indicated something just off our property, in the adjoining field. I asked him to “show me” and he took me over to the area. As I got closer, I heard barking, but could not find the dog at first. In the long grass, this giant hole was completely hidden from view. She had tried and tried to get out, as indicated by the claw marks at the top of the hole, but she couldn’t pull herself out. The owners had searched on/near our property and had actually driven their 4-wheeler within 6′ of the hole, without knowing she was there!
She was super scared, so I opted to wait for her owners to get her out. They live semi-near us, so I called, and they rushed right over. The gentleman was able to pull her out easily. It was a very happy reunion, with some tears.
Very thankful for the good outcome! Good boy, Nash!
Merle Gene Presentation
Dr. Neil O’Sullivan recently gave a presentation to the Midland & West of England Great Dane Club about the merle gene, titled “Merle, the gene we needed but did not know it.”
Click here for the accompanying slide show presentation
Rescue Dane Available
A friend of mine is working with an owner to re-home their almost one year old fawn male Great Dane. Update: The owner has decided to surrender the dog to the Upper Midwest Great Dane Rescue: https://www.thegreatdanerescue.com/. Please visit the rescue’s website and work directly with them.
This is the information I have about the dog:
- 1 year old (in July) intact fawn male, cropped ears – still has a puppy brain with puppy energy, but very smart and loving
- House-broken and knows sit, stay and shake
- Getting along fine with their two Danes – female and male (when he is tolerating the pup)
- Don’t know about cats
- Needs to be crated when nobody is home – still at the tear up & swallow puppy phase
Bing – Conformation Practice
Practice, practice, practice! We frequently attend a drop-in conformation class, so that Bing learns to be a show dog. It’s much harder than it looks! And we want the dogs to enjoy showing, so we work hard to make it fun for the dog. Part of that includes getting the dog used to what is expected of them, so it’s an enjoyable experience and not a stressful one come the day of a show.
Here he is at the end of a long class (and an impromptu play session that followed), so a bit done with it all, but still a cooperative puppy. 7 months old.
Side note: Dogs show in conformation, not confirmation. Conformation is about how the dogs conform to the breed standard.
Lost Content
My website hosting company was sold to a different company and they migrated servers….and managed to lose over two months of blog posts and website updates. 🙁 My bad for not having everything backed up. Really bad timing as I had tons of pictures of the 2018 litter. I’ll try to add back some pics as I have time.
We are on Facebook
Like our new Facebook page to see more pictures and updates about our dogs!
Sad News
Very sad to announce that we lost our sweet Kizzy. We never have enough time with our beloved canine companions, but even knowing that, it’s always hard.
Thanks for being my constant companion for many great years. Oh the fun we had, my Kizzy Roo!
4/6/08-2/5/18
Merles getting closer to being shown!
The Great Dane Club of America is working on revising the breed standard. One of the biggest pieces to the revisions is the addition of the color merle. This means that, hopefully in the near future, merles will be in the show ring!
Harlequin breeders have long realized that merles are part and parcel of the harlequin breeding program. We love our merles.
Why is the addition of merles so exciting? To understand that, one must first understand the importance of the merle gene in the harlequin world. In order to produce a harlequin (over simplified explanation), we must have one copy of the merle gene, along with a harlequin modifier gene.
That means, we need the merle gene to produce a harlequin. This also means that even when breeding two show-marked dogs together, right now, we always have the potential to produce non-showable puppies. This is problematic to harl breeders because we cannot pick the best puppy in our litter…we have to pick the best show marked puppy. We might be placing a better puppy in a pet home, merely because of their color. This removes wonderful dogs from the gene pool.
When merles can be shown, harlequin breeders have much better odds of producing an all show-marked litter, allowing them to pick the best puppy overall. Not just the best pup of a certain color. There are still some harl family colors that cannot be shown (like pie-balds, whites, “merliquins”, etc.).
The newest revision, presented at the general membership meeting at the Great Dane Club of America National Specialty, has some great wording, making patterns and markings less important than structure and breed type.
The GDCA Standards committee is doing a wonderful job writing up changes and listening to the membership’s feedback. They have went through multiple revisions and I think we are getting very close to a final version.
New Stacked Pictures
With Oden and his owner moving out of state, we had motivation to get some new stacked pictures before they left. Got pictures of the girls, too!
