New Great Dane puppy is here

Our new Great Dane puppy is here! He is cuter than cute, and we love him so much! He’s also full of mischief. One of our nicknames for him is Baby T-Rex because he loves to open his mouth wide and chew with his sharp baby teeth.

We’re struggling with how to manage him in the house. We tried to puppy-proof before he arrived, but we had a lack of imagination. He gets into EVERYTHING whenever he is awake. Yesterday I started keeping him tied on the leash a lot in the house. He’s more respectful, but he’s learning to hate the leash and to pull hard, so I don’t think that works. Tonight I pulled out a screen from a window and will try using it to block him in the hallway when I’m in my home office. I know I could just put him in the crate in the bedroom, but it seems wrong for him to be lonely there and me to be lonely here. The Dane-size crate is too heavy to move. The pup just needs a safe place to chew his toys for a while and fall asleep, a place that doesn’t demand my constant supervision so I can get some writing work done.

He’s 2 months old and in the midst of the critical period for puppy socialization, which lasts until 4 months old. So I will cut back on blogging so I can spend more time interacting with my puppy. I will probably start a whole new blog about the new puppy. I’ll let this one stand in honor of Winston.

I will probably not link this blog with my new blog, so if you want to continue following my adventures with my dog, please email me and I will send you info on the new blog. My email address is: LynwoodAssoc at aol.com.

Thanks to all those who visited, commented and enjoyed this blog.

Deposit on Dane pup

The high school kid next door suggested that I search for puppies on PennySaver.com. He was right! A super-cute litter of Harlequin and Merle Great Danes had just been born and listed.

I started visiting their website every few days to watch as the pups got bigger. It tugged at my heart as the cutest Harlequins got sold one by one. I showed the site to Dillon, but she wasn’t interested. We were too focused on adopting an adult dog. She told me that she didn’t think she could handle a puppy.

That all changed after we tried working with a rescue group. The rules were picky and sometimes crazy. Like this one: We were required to bring an imprinted tag to our adoption appointment saying “Needs medication,” even though it wasn’t true. The purpose was to discourage others from keeping our dog if he got lost.

And -- the adoption fees were almost as high as buying a Great Dane puppy. I kept doing research and learned that most reputable breeders want you to return the Danes to them if you can’t keep them, so that they will never end up in a rescue group or shelter. That meant that the Danes at the rescue were likely to be from careless breeders.

Dillon’s objections to training a puppy melted away when I reminded her of the obvious: They’re a lot smaller than adult dogs.

We looked at my favorite breeder’s website again with growing excitement. We filled out the online adoption application. It seemed easy because we had already done answered these questions before at the Humane Society and the rescue. We clicked the “submit” button and within an hour the breeder called us.

We hit it off right away on the phone. We said that we wanted to choose our puppy based on personality: “We’re looking for a male Merle or Harlequin Great Dane who is friendly, loving, tuned into people, and has a gentle, submissive temperament. We look forward to welcoming a new “big boy” into our home and hearts!”

One pup fit the bill: A cuuuuute merle mantle male. I also liked the looks of one Harlequin pup, but he was the runt of the litter with very low energy. The breeder said that she had already gotten four calls about him that day. Dillon and I got off the phone to discuss our decision. It wasn’t hard: We decided to adopt the merle.

We called right back and sent our deposit!

Now we have to wait until our puppy is eight weeks old in late June. Then he’ll be old enough to leave his mom and littermates. Meanwhile, the breeder is sending us weekly updates with photos of how our puppy is progressing.

Kitty's favorite toy is Cat Dancer

Our cat Sapphire misses having a dog around the house. She’s dealing with the loss by spending a lot more time playing with her favorite toy: the Cat Dancer Original Action Cat Toy.

The cat dancer is a wire with bits of rolled up paper on the ends. It’s the simplest, cheapest cat toy -- but cats LOVE it. Many reviews at Amazon.com attest to its fascination for kitties.

The cat dancer was also the favorite toy of our previous cat, the venerable Ambush.

Sapphire plays with the cat dancer in the video above.

Colossal Dane-size dog crate

Midwest Metals Big Dog Crate

I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around the idea of a dog crate big enough for a new Great Dane puppy that we hope to get.

There’s one “Colossal” crate that’s big enough for a full-grown Dane. It’s 45 inches tall -- that’s almost 4 feet! The length is 54 inches -- almost five feet. It’s three feet wide.

I kept walking around our bedroom with a yardstick, trying to imagine this massive crate in our space. It blew my mind. I just could not imagine it.

Our previous Dane had curled up happily under a table by the bed, no problem. But he came to us when he was a year old -- housebroken and well past the chewing stage when a puppy can be a danger to himself.

They call it a crate, but it’s actually a CAGE made of wires. Dillon and I didn’t like the idea of a cage, even though it’s for the safely of the pup. When people said “crate,” I had visualized a plastic box with a wire door like our cat carrier. But the biggest of these plastic crates is only (!) three feet high. I read that a Dane can be 33 inches at the shoulder at just six months old.

The plastic crates look more comfortable for the dog. Who wants to lie against wires? And doggie “accidents” can spray right through the wires of the Colossal crate, while the plastic crate contains it.

We figured that we don’t need a crate big enough to hold our Dane when he’s full grown. We can keep him in the hallway if necessary, and we’d like him to have the run of the house.

Finally we called our favorite Great Dane breeder with our concerns. She said the 3-foot plastic crate is big enough if we just want to keep our puppy in a crate until he is housebroken and done teething. She estimated that to be age 4 to 6 months.

What a relief! These 3-foot-high crates are cheaper, easier to find, and will fit into the bedroom without rearranging ALL the furniture.

P.S. on Oct. 16, 2008

OK, OK, I was wrong and all of you whose comments told me to buy the colossal crate were right. We DID end up buying this exact same crate recently and it’s working well for our Dane puppy. He outgrew the three-foot-high crate about a month ago. He was almost 5 months old -- still in the midst of teething and not safe to have the run of the bedroom. Now at almost 6 months old, he likes this colossal crate better than the old plastic one -- not only because it’s bigger, but because it allows greater air circulation and he can see what what’s happening in the room around him.

It definitely was more work to set up than the plastic type of crate. I had to hire a handyman to help. He laughed when he read the instructions, which never call it a cage or even a crate, but instead refer to it as a “pet home.”

All jokes aside, my Great Dane puppy does seem to consider it a peaceful, relaxing home of his own.