Great Dane Breeder; Bing the Great Dane
Bing and Nash both picked up their CA (Coursing Ability) titles in September. If you have never been to a lure coursing event, I highly recommend checking one out! It was great fun…the people were fantastic, the dogs loved the run, and it was beyond awesome to see the dogs give it their all.
Some pictures from that weekend:
Super excited to share that Bing picked up his first major win at the Great Dane Club of Des Moines Specialties this past weekend. The weekend before that, he picked up his first point at the Amana dog shows. Love this silly boy so much!
Earlier this month, both Bing and Nash earned their CGC (Canine Good Citizen) and Bing also earned his Novice Trick Dog title.
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.
Always enjoy our Dane club’s shows. We had a great turn out this year. Gigi picked up a reserve win one day of the show, but no points.
Some pictures from the weekend:
The Central Iowa Kennel Club is offering a handling seminar in Des Moines on May 21-22, 2016. This is a great learning opportunity, no matter if you have been showing for years or you are just looking to get started.
Gigi has been playing show-dog-in-training at handling classes lately. Couple snaps from a recent class:
A sweet picture from when Oden (Gigi’s brother) recently stayed with us while his human mom was traveling:
Fun way to start Gigi’s show career! A nice Best in Match win at the Puppy Derby.
Kizzy Reserve Winners to a major picture from January 18, 2015:
Kizzy has been out with a handling team and has picked up three more points towards her AKC championship. She is now “singled out” – she has 12 of her 15 needed points and just needs a 3-point major to finish her championship.
Don’t know what that dog show jargon means, but curious? Check out AKC’s Beginners’ Guide To Dog Shows and/or Counting Points at a Dog Show.
Here she is with Gwen Meyer, winning two points (June 2013):
