It is cold and foggy here in the Big Valley. We have been reading online about some changes in the Great Dane Standard, but haven't checked to see if what is being passed around is correct or not.

Generally, and unless the GDCA Standard has changed, only blacks from blue breeding can be bred to blues.  Only Blacks from Harlequin breeding can be bred to Harlequins and I guess the Mantles.  Only blacks from Fawn Breedings can be bred to Fawns and Brindles. And of course black to black breeding.   I have never known or heard or read that any black can be bred to any color other then the same bloodline the black was born into.

I do not stud my dogs out anyway.  Although a lot of people ask or call or email me asking if I do, I don't.

Another rumor that I heard circulating is that you don't have to crop ears to enter into the show ring. That is also a new one for me.  I know that in other countries ear cropping has been outlawed, and I have seen dogs or pups from these countries stacked with the handler holding the ears above the head.  I guess you can and as the person told the other person asking about the ear cropping, the individual needs to be perfect in other areas. 

I have been trying to get these pups to stack naturally by raising the food bowl.  Some show person taught me that years ago, and it works. The pup learns how to stack with thier heads up.  I know there is more to stacking a dog or puppy, but I think this little step helps them to get the idea to hold thier heads up.

I have never made the claim that any of my pups are BIS BISS quality, but since they are AKC registered dogs they can be shown in AKC sanctioned events and classes. Maybe this BIS BISS is where many people get mixed up, I guess it depends on whether or not you want to use your dog for sport and recreation or really sail to the top of Great Dane World.

Signing off, I am missing Hot in Cleveland.  I hope Don Rickels stays on the show. It is a great comedy with a little vaudeville thrown in.

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 7:59 PM PST

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It is two days before Thanksgiving and I have a lot of things to do so most likely will not be blogging on the litter.

I had a phone call today and tried to send a link to my facebook page and videos.  I don't know how to use the phone the phone is doing just what it wants to do. Now I have another public video just so someone can see a video.  The puppies are getting bigger and they are not wanting to go outside in the cold. 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and keep the peace.

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 10:06 AM PST

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I was reading elsewhere on the internet about teaching a puppy to ring a bell to let the owner know it needed to go outside. They did a long drawn out pick up bell, give command, put puppy out etc. etc. etc.  Mine have been trained using a different method and one which doesn't rely on the owner picking up the bell and ringing it.

I have sleigh bells on my doorknobs, so everytime the dogs go out, it automatically rings or jingles.  I am not actively ringing the bells and prompting them, they are picking up on the sound whenever the door is opened or the doorknob is used.  This is an easier method, although either method works, the end result is the same, the Dog has the owner trained to open the door to go out. This has led to some interesting scenarios in my house.  Like a dog grabbing the doorbells off the knob and running around the house jingling the bell to wake me up to go outside.  Or just to go outside and take a look at what's happening on the street without any real need to go potty.  They pick this up all by themselves, so owners can truly say they are owned by their dogs, not the other way around. So who is getting conditioned here the owner or the dog, why the owner of course!

They also have pulled on the larger bells that are hanging on other doorknobs if I didn't hear the slight jingle.

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 10:11 AM PST

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It is almost Thanksgiving and I can't wait. Have been watching FoodNetwork all week long.  The solid blue male and I sat in the living room chair this morning and he really was interested in the Hershey's Kiss jingling bells commercial. He watched the entire ad intently.  I didn't tell him that dogs are not allowed to have chocolate though, was just happy that his attention was on the ad.

Last night a stray tiger cat showed up on the back porch.  It looks like a nice kitty.  S/He was looking for food in the puppy bowl. I got him out of the backyard by giving him some dog food in the front yard instead.  I have mixed feelings about this as I need a new barn cat to keep the mice down, but the cat must be smart enough to stay out of the backyard.  Freeway, a silver tabby knew better but he did like to tease the dogs by getting atop the roof and staring at them.  I don't have other animals except for the horses.  The puppies have been ignoring the horses and while interested in them, they are not chasing them.  Sometimes the horses like to tease the dogs too, by doing thier airs above the ground, throwing their tails over their backs and snorting.  They are arabians and all of them have been around Great Danes a couple from birth.

People on some dane lists have started a thread asking if people have Rescued.  Yes I have rescued and black great dane when I was living in Sonoma County in 1975 for $5.00.  I went to get a cat, and came home with a Great Dane. Alisha was taken to the pound because the owner could not afford to pay the boarding fee at the boarding kennels, and the boarding kennels took her to the pound.  According to what I was told, the breeder picked up the male dane and not the female, but I am now wondering since I have gotten older and longer in the teeth, if the boarding kennel kept the female and only allowed the male to be picked up ? She was a registered dog but of course the boarding kennel didn't have the papers on her.  I remember taking her to the Russian River and running into people who had danes. One man had a nice black male and wanted our phone number, but we never exchanged numbers.

I also rescued a German Shepard from the Orange County Pound, who did have papers in 1970, cost $15.00. We called him Sampson. We ended up finding him a new home with some lady in Newport Beach whose entire house was white and she wanted a white dog to match.

And I have rescued a lot of cats over the years including ones I have found running across the highway, hence, the silver tabby named Freeway.

Then there were three siamese cats. My daughter and I and her friends would ride along a railroad track in Tulare County.  Three siamese kittens came out of the brush and acted like they were stalking the horses mountain lion style. It took me a couple of days to catch all but one.  It took me 3 months to catch Baby Face Nelson using turkey parts.  He lived to be 21 years old.  I have his ashes.

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 11:32 AM PST

Updated: Sunday, 20 November 2011 11:44 AM PST

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Holly, TJ, Joy and Skylar all took a bow today.  I used to think they were bowing to RAH because every morning TJ would stretch his front paws out and bow.  Today, Skylar did it, and then Holly and Joy all took a bow.  The shutter wasn't fast enough to catch them without a slight blur.  She is also going to change her will again. She was leaving 30 % to ASPCA, but has now changed her mind for some mysterious reason.  Maybe it's because she belongs to the other PETA aka the "people who eat tasty animals".  She learned that from the movie "Have you heard about the Morgan's" and has been laughing out loud whenever she thinks about PETA. Congratulations to the person who wrote that line, loved it.

[corrected movie title]

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 5:24 PM PST

Updated: Sunday, 20 November 2011 11:25 AM PST

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I tried to post a remote update to this blog from my smart phone, only to realize I don't have a keyboard. So I will be posting that information today instead of yesterday evening.

We had our second DHLPP shot yesterday.  Our litter owner got a call from a local woman in Fresno whose friend told her about us.  She called and made arrangements to see the litter today. However, after talking to the lady on the telephone yesterday and finding out the woman has an 85# 5 and a half month old male Mastiff, she decided it wasn't the best fit for us. We are only 9 weeks old and weigh about 30#'s.  The lady mentioned she had researched the Great Dane Breed on Wiki, and said something about Wiki stating that the Great Dane's were really Mastiffs.  Our litter owner told her about the bas reliefs from 3000 BC, being seen as Mastiff dogs hunting alongside chariots may have been our ancestors but we are no longer that breed. Plus after reading many books on the Great Dane from Noted Authorities and Dane Handlers, Breeders, and Judges, those books don't just list the Mastiff or the Irish Wolfhound in our gene pool.  We are actually bred from several types of breeds not just two.

She is also remembering that a Golden Lab breeder in Sonoma, used to keep her puppies in runs according to age and size.  I dont' recall if she was breeding them as service or therapy dogs, just that that is how she kept them until they reached a certain size and age.

She had been noticing that our mother was dive bombing us trying to play with us and we were hiding under benches from her, so she has removed us from her because she doesnt' want us to be shy around other dogs. I wish I had noticed this behavior a long time ago, but I did not.

She also went to DOL and asked a question pertaining to our breed.  She had discovered a notice about Realigning Great Danes and placing them in the Molosser Class.  You can find the letter to AKC requesting that we are not realigned into a different class on the GDCA.ORG website.  She wrote to the AKC requesting that we not be reclassified, and added that she felt that novices to the breed have been misled into believing that Mastiff looking Danes are the breed standard, and that has never been the case.  That is just her opinion of course, but over the past 10 years she has been fielding questions about huge, big, danes and a lot of people have tried to compare us with the Mastiff Breed.  Out of exasperation with these questions and statements, she finally placed a couple of links on the Fan Tan Dane website to both the Great Dane Standard and the Mastiff Standard back in 2008.

Not much else to say today.

Will try to do a remote post again someday to see if I can.

Missy Blue Bayou.

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 3:30 PM PST

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Last night our aunt Holly did some role modeling for us.  She loves those scooby snacks.  We watched her everytime she was told that Good dogs, sit. And she did sit. She loves us and we admire her. So when we were told that Good Dogs Sit, we sat so we could get a scooby snack too.  Not all of us behaved, some of us were jumping up and trying to be first, but soon we noticed that only good dogs that are patiently sitting were getting treats, so we all finally sat.

We were worked on the command a little bit this morning. The boys are picking it up faster than the girls and are waiting patiently for their treat. The blue male with no white on his body except behind his pasterns, is the most patient of us all, then comes another big brother with a tad of white on his chest and his back toes. Then there is a little boy who is so patient he is overlooked. But we waited for our treat, becuase we actually like to compete.  None of us are on a leash or collar, we are in a circle group. 

I wish I had an application for the camera that adds things to our photos like brass buttons, caps etc. We could all be dressed in the USAF, USN, or PD uniforms. We could all be blue angels and look like Snoopy the ace fighter pilot in Charles Brown.

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 10:56 AM PST

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One of our sisters went to a new home today in Orange County, California.  The lady who bought her knew a lot about great danes although she had never owned a blue dane before. She looked at our mother who was crouching down outside on the patio on her haunches and said she looked a lot like one of her old danes from days gone bye.

Our litter mom was scared to death to allow any of the adults near the people due to liability reasons.  TJ our Great Grandpa was noisy but sweet none the less.  Joy allowed the lady to pat her on the haunches.  Our parents have been off the property, in fact one day our litter owner took RCA to the vets and stopped into the grocery store. There was a lady parked next to her pick up and RC was in the back seat.  Our litter owner went into the store and when she came back the lady that was parked next to her truck was still there, so she asked: " Did he bark alot." The lady responded no, he was a perfect gentleman.  So our litter owner drove home, and when she got home and opened the door to the half seat behind the drivers seat, RCA had untied the cotton lead rope from the hook on his collar. So he kept himself busy and occupied while she was in the store.

WE are hoping everything will be ok.

Our new owner is naming the littlest one Celeste Ceour V FTD. I think that is how she spelled it.  I guess this may change if it is spelled incorrectly.

Miss Blue Bayou

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 3:24 PM PST

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How many people will look at photos on a website and not ask if those danes are relatives to our litter? There are so many people on the internet these days and they make giant leaps in logic that is really illogical because they dont' ask. They Assume. A wise Psychology Teacher once stated, or maybe it was a philosophy teacher, {Both had a Ph.D.} When you make an assumption you are really making an Ass U {and} me, that is how assume is spelled and that is what the reality of the word defined. There are so many people in the world who are afraid to ask their teachers questions, that some never get or understand the concept of the material being taught. Then there are the non believers or the True Believers whose basic knowledge comes from how they were raised and their cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, and other basic beliefs that are taught by authority figures. Not everyone in the world holds the same opinions because it wasnt' in God's plan that we all think the same way, we are as different as our fingerprints and as we develop into adults, our environments play a huge role in what we also believe. Science is constantly contradicting itself.  Ex. Coffee is Bad and Evil, no Coffee is good for you and has nutrients. The egg scare of the 70's another example of contradictory thinking. And this doesn't even include the other professional fields that contradict one anothers research.  And the above represents simple things, not the hard things like the Margaret Sanger thread. Sanger's ideals are not being followed in todays world of Psychology Patients. For those who have no clue, she sanctioned sterilization for psych patients including developmentally disabled people. There have been developmentally disabled individuals who have had children with normal brain functioning who are respected functioning members of society. In other words they have Utility.

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 1:48 PM PST

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We are not even 9 weeks old yet, and already our facebook ad has been showing blind harlequin danes, which is common in harlequins, being lead around by a merle dane.

Then there was a statement about how some blind great dane had it's eyes removed because it was blind.  Who does that ? Our litter owner never heard of that before, and why would a veterinarian pull out a blind danes eyes!  One thought is that it may have had cancer in it's eyes but another is that maybe there was a research project going on and they removed the eyes to find the cause.

At any rate, we feel that we are being worked against not with because no one considered our ages before they went into heroic mode.

We are doing ok, we are being taken back off of our milk replacer because it isn't sitting well with us, maybe it is the salmonella scare in pet food that the evening news mentioned, only that warning applied to humans not dogs. Of course at our age of 8 weeks, we wouldn't have any immunity built up like an older dog would.

We are still being compared with merle or blue merles and we have never had an ancestor that is a merle, with torn patches or black spots in thier coats in any of past litters. Merle's cannot be shown in the arena because it isn't a GDCA color.

Our litter owner is going to find the old ATT or PacBell joke and ask our prospective buyers to press various numbers on their phone keypad if they are Obsessive Compulsive, etc. etc. etc. poking fun at the various neurosis that the psych field dx people with. Our litter owner feels that neurotics have no business owning a dog because they are neurotic and that makes them too picky. about minor things, like a piece of hay showing up in an ancestor stool. Poor pup ended up at the vets because he liked to model and mimic the horses and ate alfalfa hay.

Posted by bluediamondgreatdane at 1:25 PM PST

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