Bred for the boar hunt
A Great Dane is German. The English name is a translation of grand Danois, a label the French naturalist Buffon attached to the dog in the eighteenth century, and it has stuck in English ever since despite having nothing to do with Denmark. In Germany the breed is the Deutsche Dogge, and that is the accurate name.
The job it was built for was the wild boar. Boar were heavy, fast and armed, and hunting them across the great German estates called for dogs that could run with horses, close with the quarry and hold it until the hunters arrived. The dogs that did the holding were called Saupacker, boar catchers, and they were selected for height, reach, depth of chest and steadiness rather than for looks. Broad collars with turned-out spikes protected the neck at the moment of contact. That is where the size comes from.
The best of those dogs did not live in a kennel. A German noble would bring his finest indoors as Kammerhunde, chamber dogs, which slept in the bedchamber wearing gilded collars lined with velvet. The breed has therefore been leading a double life as an outdoor working hound and an indoor companion for several hundred years, and that history explains a great deal about the dog that ends up on your sofa.
By the middle of the nineteenth century the boar hunt had faded and the dogs were being kept for their own sake. German breeders and judges met in Berlin in 1880, agreed that the dog was a distinctly German breed rather than a variety of mastiff, and settled on Deutsche Dogge as its name. A German breed club followed in 1888. The American Kennel Club recognized the Great Dane in 1887, and the Great Dane Club of America, founded in 1889, is one of the oldest parent clubs in the country. Pennsylvania later named the Great Dane its state dog, on the strength of a portrait of William Penn with one at his side.
The Apollo of dogs
The breed’s nickname is the Apollo of dogs, and it is about proportion as much as height. A Great Dane is meant to be square and clean-lined, carrying the elegance of an oversized sighthound rather than the mass of a mastiff, and the standard asks for a dog that never looks clumsy from any angle.
The numbers are worth having in front of you before you meet one. A male stands at least thirty inches at the shoulder and is preferred well over thirty-two. A female stands at least twenty-eight and is preferred over thirty. Adult males commonly weigh between one hundred and forty and one hundred and seventy-five pounds, females between one hundred and ten and one hundred and forty. Put plainly, a male up on his hind legs is taller than most people, and his head at rest sits at the height of a kitchen counter.
The head is long and rectangular, flat across the top, with a defined stop and a squared-off muzzle. The ears are naturally soft and fold forward against the cheek; cropping was once routine and natural ears are increasingly the norm both in the ring and out of it. The neck is long and arched, the chest deep, the back level and short, and the whole thing moves with a long, easy, ground-covering stride that is the single most impressive thing about the breed in person.
The colours, and how they are made
Great Danes come in a defined set of colours, and each one is a specific pattern rather than just a shade.
Fawn is golden yellow with a black mask, dark eye rims and dark ears. Brindle is the same golden ground overlaid with strong black cross-stripes in a chevron pattern, and a well-marked brindle in low sunlight is a genuinely striking animal. Blue is a pure steel grey, right through to the nose and the eye rims. Black is glossy jet.
Then the two patterned colours the breed is famous for. Harlequin is a white ground with torn black patches distributed over the body, no two dogs marked alike, with a white neck preferred. Mantle is black and white in a fixed arrangement: a solid black blanket over the body, a white muzzle, a white blaze up the face, a white collar, a white chest, white legs and a white tip to the tail. Merle, a grey ground carrying darker patches, is part of the modern standard too.
The coat itself is short, thick, smooth and naturally glossy, and it is about as easy as coats get.
The temperament everyone talks about
Danes have a reputation for being mild-mannered, and it holds up in person. This is a people-focused, affectionate, thoroughly domestic dog that would rather be in the room with its household than anywhere else, and a settled adult spends a large part of the day arranged along a sofa or lying across a doorway where two rooms are visible at once.
The lap-dog joke is not entirely a joke. A Great Dane will reverse into your legs and gradually transfer its weight onto them, rest its chin on the table beside your plate, or climb into an armchair and try to fold itself down to armchair size. Owners talk about the leaning more than anything else.
They are easy company in other ways too. Danes are quiet by the standards of large breeds. One will let you know when someone is at the door, in a voice that suits the size of the dog, and then go back to what it was doing. They read tone closely and give their best to someone cheerful and clear. Inside their own household they are patient and steady, and they take an interest in children, visitors and other dogs without making a production of it.
Life at Great Dane scale
Living with a dog this size is mostly a matter of setting the house up once and then enjoying it.
Counters and the dining table sit at head height for an adult, so food gets put away rather than left out, and most households arrive at that habit inside the first month. A tail at coffee-table height clears a coffee table, which is a fair argument for a low, sturdy one. Rugs or runners across tile give a big dog confident footing. Buy the crate and the bed for the adult rather than for the puppy, and measure the back of the car before you fall for one.
Exercise is more moderate than people expect. Two decent walks a day and somewhere to stretch out suits most adult Danes, and this is a breed happy to trade distance for company. In a Florida or Tennessee summer the early and late hours are the pleasant ones for both of you, with shade, water and a cool floor in between. Grooming is a rubber curry once a week, which lifts the loose hair and brings up the shine, plus nails trimmed a little and often, ears wiped in the same session, and teeth brushed from the first week.
The year the puppy is bigger every week
Great Dane puppies grow at a rate that has to be seen to be believed. A dog that arrives at ten weeks small enough to lift with one arm will out-weigh a grown adult before its first birthday, and that year is exactly when you teach the manners you want for the following decade.
Start the week the puppy comes home. Loose-leash walking first, because a Dane that walks politely is a pleasure forever. Then a settle on a mat, a wait at the door, a leave-it, four feet on the floor for greetings, and a recall paid every single time. Sessions of five minutes, food and praise as the currency, the same words from every adult in the house, and finish while the dog still wants another go. Danes are sensitive and cooperative, and they give far more to encouragement and routine than to volume.
Feed a food formulated for large-breed puppies and measure the portions rather than filling the bowl. Keep that first year’s exercise steady and low-impact, with free play on grass doing more good than distance on pavement.
Socialization is the other half of the year. Take the puppy out to meet ordinary things: different floors, lifts, umbrellas, bicycles, hardware stores, calm grown dogs going about their business. A Dane that has met a great many ordinary things young grows into the unbothered adult the breed is known for.
Coming to stand next to one
Scale is the one thing a photograph cannot deliver. A Great Dane puppy in front of you is heavier than it looks, softer than it looks, and considerably more interested in your face than in the toy you brought with you.
Our Great Dane puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you what a particular puppy’s parents were like and what the coming year looks like week by week. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit on the floor with a puppy for as long as you like before deciding anything. Find directions and hours, and ask about financing while you are here. Every puppy here goes home with its vet records, its vaccination history and a health warranty, and our team will walk you through what those cover.