Memphis Man Shot By Dog

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. This is a local Memphis news story:

In case you've missed the headlines, a local man was shot by his dog on Wednesday morning. In fairness to the dog (a Great Dane named King George), the shooting was an accident. Apparently, King George was excited by visitors to his home and accidentally knocked a handgun off of a table and onto the floor. The gun then discharged, sending a bullet into the back of the dog's owner. Perhaps King George should have taken a handgun safety class before trying to handle a gun. The good news is, his owner is expected to make a full recovery.

Great Danes

By El Young

In popular culture, anyone would see several references of Great Dane dogs: from Hanna-Barbera’s Scooby-Doo and Astro of the Jetsons to Einstein in Disney’s Oliver & Company and Duke and Turk of the Swiss Family Robinson. That’s not all, there’s still Ace from Batman Beyond, G.B. Stern's The Ugly Dachshund novel, Mars and Jupiter from the patriot, the 2003 movie Good Boy…and so on.

Great Dane dogs have enjoyed a history of celebrated success more than most dog breed because they have characteristics uniquely their own: long, slender and lanky bodies with a regal bearing coupled with a gentle temperament common to the mastiff breed, of whom it might be closely related.


Appearance of Great Dane Dogs


The general minimum height of Great Dane dogs is 28 – 32 inches at the withers, and weighs a general minimum of 100 – 120 lbs. Comparatively an English Mastiff can grow 27 – 32 inches and weighs 175 – 200 lbs, making a Great Dane impression as tall and lanky. One of its prominent features aside from a well muscled slender body is long slender legs and a broad skull with a generally square appearance, especially along the snout. Coats of fawn are the most common along with a black mask. Other common coat color is brindle, blue and black, some lesser occurring coat colors is the harlequin (pure white but with black patches distributed over the entire body) and mantle.


Temperament of Great Dane Dogs


Though a large, well muscled dog, Great Dane dogs are famed for being very tolerant, such is why they have earned the sobriquet “Gentle giants”. This also makes them poor guard dogs, being predisposed to human affection even to strangers. But because of such temperament, plus mild activity, they make perfect pets for aging individuals as well as younger children.

Great Dane dogs have strong dominance issues regarding other dogs and smaller animals, which is why it is imperative that Great Dane dogs receive obedience training as well as aggression training while still young.


Health Issues of Great Dane Dogs


Common to large dogs such as Mastiffs and Mossolers, Great Dane dogs have slow metabolism. That is also why Great Dane dogs are more placid than other energetic dogs like huskies and malamutes. And much like most dogs that are somewhat inactive, they are prone to bloating, hip dysplasia, and a string of congenital heart diseases. And like Dalmatian dogs, Great Dane dogs have a genetic disposition to become deaf as they age.

El is the owner of the dog behavioral training website. Visit http://www.dog-training-reviewed.com/ to find out more resources and offers for dog lovers.

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Can you find Divot?

Here is a picture that kind of gives you an idea of how big Shadow is. If you look closely, inside the cage is a small blond puff of fur named Divot. That's my mom's Maltese. When my parents come to town, we usually keep Divot in a cage, not because the two dogs fight, but just to keep Shadow from accidentally stepping on Divot. One misstep from our beast, and Divot would be in serious trouble.

Truth be told, when the two dogs are together, Divot is the one that is the aggressor, growling and yapping at Shadow. Shadow pretty much thinks Divot is a living stuffed animal, and just wants to play.

Speaking of stuffed animals, the last time my parents were in town, they brought a teddy bear which was Divot's toy. After they left, Shadow continued to play with the teddy bear, but not destroy it. This is unusual behavior for Shadow, because usually when he gets a stuffed animal, it's a matter of minutes before it is nothing but a "skin" on the floor next to a big pile of batting material. I don't know if Shadow thinks the bear actually IS Divot, or if it just smells like him, or if Shadow just misses his little buddy, but that was about a year ago, and the teddy bear is still in one piece. A record!

Well, hopefully my parents will visit soon and Shadow can see his pal again.

What breed do you think Shadow is?

Shadow is very unique in his appearance. He looks like a large German Shepherd, but with a larger chest, and a flatter nose in the front. He has the pointed ears like a German Shepherd, but they are quite large as well (around 6 inches long). At 130 lbs, he is slightly smaller than most Great Danes that I've seen, but larger than an Akita. Speaking of the Akita, his build is most similar to them, with longer legs and a very powerful, broad chest. What do you think? Please post a comment if you have any ideas. His face is closest to a Newfoundland, with the flat front and slightly loose lips that have jet black skin. The Newfoundland has much longer hair, though.

He has a great temperament, being quite gentle around the kids, but just by size alone, and his deep growl, he will definitely make an intruder think twice about approaching our yard or house. Most of the time, he thinks he is human. He is always hanging around someone in the household, curious as to what we are doing. If we are just relaxing, he will lay on the floor by our feet calmly, but when there is activity, he HAS to be a part of it. From what I have read, these are all traits of a Great Dane.

Being a big dog, he needs lots of exercise, so he pretty much owns our backyard. We have a good-sized fenced lot for him to run in, and we also walk him as often as possible. He loves riding in the car, so we try to take him whenever we have errands to run.

Mischievous is also a good word to describe him. People with small dogs have no idea. Most dogs will get into anything that they can reach if you let them, but when your dog can reach EVERYTHING, it is quite a challenge to keep him out of trouble.

Anyway, those are his traits. If you have any ideas on what type of dog he might be, drop me a line.

Meet Shadow, the BIG Dog

Having a dog can be rewarding and and sometimes challenging, with house-training, cat-chasing, digging, etc. Don't get me wrong, we love our dog, but having a BIG DOG sometimes can be a LOT more challenging than rewarding!

We got Shadow about 3 years ago from the local Humane Society. Since we are not snobby about our pets, we always get them from the pound, because we figure if we can do the community a favor by saving unwanted pets, we might as well. We usually don't look for any particular breed or gender, just one that is even-tempered and friendly. We have kids, so we try not to get pets that could be dangerous. A Pit Bull, for example, would not be a good choice for us. I know people who have, and love, their Pit Bulls, but we aren't willing to take that chance.

So, we go to the Humane Society to look for a new dog. We had another dog, Sammy (Samuel Adams was his full name - I like my beer, what can I say?), who was a small mutt, and we thought we would look for maybe a medium-sized dog to be his companion. He was getting kind of grumpy in his old age, and we thought this would give him someone to play with (This turned out to be a terrible idea, as I will tell you in a future post).

They had quite a few full-grown dogs there, which is always kind of sad, because people usually just want puppies or kittens when they come to the Humane Society. We wanted a puppy as well. Like I said before, we didn't want any dog that might already have a temperament problem. Keeping the kids' focus on track in the pound is also kind of challenging, as you might imagine. "Awwwwww, look at the cute little kitties. Can we have one?". That was a phrase heard several times during our visit.

And then we saw him. A small black and white puppy that was whimpering and acting "oh so cute". The kids put their hands up to the cage, and he immediately started licking them. I knew then that he was our dog. We found out from one of the employees that he was the last (and smallest) of a litter of 5 puppies that were dropped off. We looked at his information card. It said that his name was Duke, that he was a German Shepard mix, he was house-trained, had his shots, and would grow to be a medium-sized dog. Yeah, right. If you look at the pics on the blog header, you will see a puppy picture on the left, and a full-grown picture on the right. That is a 4 ft. high fence!

Well the kids didn't really like the name Duke, so we decided to change his name. Our daughter wanted to name him Shadow, and our son wanted to name him Record. Record? Yeah, Record. As in, the things that CD's replaced. OK, so now we have an argument on our hands. As anyone who has children knows, 2 siblings will never agree on anything. Sometimes I think we should have another child, just to act as a tie-breaker. So we decided to use Shadow as his first name, and Record as his middle name. Shadow Record. That's our dog!