NOTE:

We do not list any Great Danes from puppy mills such as those from the Amish Farmers, which often use families from low income areas to breed their puppies. I know of some South Jersey Great Dane breeders that are keeping their puppies under filthy conditions outdoors in the cold.

Ours are raised in the house with us as a whole family. Before purchasing, ask to see where the puppies are kept. Sorry we stopped breeding, it just takes so much time and effort.

Caring for Great Danes

Feeding

Avoid feeding using a plastic yellow or green bowls. Danes have sensitive mouths and these types of colored plastic can cause their lips to swell from the chemicals these colored plastics give off. We lay tree branches around the house for them to teeth on during their first couple of years. Provide plenty of leather chews. Elevate their feeding bowls. And yes, plenty of bones, including chicken bones.

All chicken bones can be fed to your Great Dane, except for the hard leg bone, which they may swallow completely causing bloat. Although I have never encountered that problem. Our Danes eat foot long rolled up leathers just about daily, including singles. When they refuse the singles and keep bugging us for the good chicken or pig's ear, we keep some prepared in the freezer. Prepared means we melt some of the cheese ends on the strips in the microwave for 15 seconds or so for a bunch, then freeze or refrigerate them. They love them.

In the past chicken bones did cause a lot of problems, which was attributed to chickens that were raised for several years. Older chicken develop hard brittle bones that break into sharp edges. Today, chickens are slaughtered after three months of growth when bones are still soft. Be careful with Turkey bones.

We purchase many chicken backbones, which are soft bones that provide our Danes with great bone structure and we never had any of the hip problems. We pressure cook them lightly, break in half, and freeze for treats. The chicken fat and broth we save some to add to their dry dog food. Dogs like it more dry than too liquid for the crunchy taste verses the mushy taste.

Once when we thought our Dane was choking on one of those cow rib bones that you can buy. My wife pushed her hand down its throat up to her elbow, and the dog did not even flinch. She did not find anything, but the dog kept trying to get something out of its mouth. As it turned its head, I noticed a two-inch piece of the rib bone was stuck to her upper jaw between her teeth. I was able to reach in, and pulled it free, and tossing it in the trash.

If you like feeding dog bones with the marrow inside, what we do is boil them first, then after the dog is done with it, stuff if with canned dog food and freeze. Cottage cheese and others are good calcium sources.
With so many types of parasites and viruses out there in the meat products, it is always best to cook the meats before giving them to your dog. I know of a breeder that believes in giving his dogs' raw meat, however, I believe he is playing a game of chance. Our Danes when given anything raw would not touch it and preferred cooked instead. Keep them safe.

Female Dogs in heat Problems

Females not fixed are near impossible to control from breeding with any other male dog they happen to meet. Therefore, I recommend a minimum of a five-foot high fence. The bottom to be reinforced using chicken fencing three feet high bent into the letter "L". This will keep her from digging under the fence to get out. Attach it to the fence using plastic wire ties. After the first year, females and males will calm down greatly. Although not totally, you see have to watch when she comes into heat. Best thing I found is to strap on an electric collar when she needs to go out, and you only need to use the buzzer or vibration when she strays too far.

As an example of what is wrong with the shock method with electric collars is a story from my younger brother, who passed away. Anyway, he used one of those collars to control his cocker spaniel. Every time his friends would leave after a visit his dog would run up with no harm to the person. Lou, my brother would shock the dog to stay back. Well after a few of those the dog panicked whenever someone tried to leave, and it would attack the person feeling that when they left the poor dog gets a shock. The dog always assumed it was the person leaving that was shocking it. I told Lou his problem and how to correct it before he passed away. I never ever had to use anything but the buzzer, because when you buzz it distracts the dog so much that they stop what they are thinking or focused on and gets them back on track.

Crating

Avoid crating your Great Dane as I have seen a Dane that was crated only to end up walking crooked squawding from not been able to stand erect in the cage or with its head push constantly downward. The guy should have been arrested for cruety.

Ear Cleaning and mites

For ear cleaning, we find it easier to wet one of the facial cloth wipe's verses trying to squirt fluid in their ears. It's the facial pads women use for makeup, we put a small puddle on both sides of lavender lotion thinned with alcohol. You can buy it from the Dollar stores it's called Angel of Mine. The dogs love it, you can rub it on them as is or dilute it with alcohol for killing ear mites and more. For fleas and ticks I find any of the outdoor tick and mosquitoes sprays works just as good as the commercial dog products. If you read the ingredients, they are identical, pyrithine is the main ingredient. Simply spray just behind their head and the upper rump areas. No need to spend $40 for tick collars when you can buy bug sprays in the dollar stores.

Bloat

Danes or any large dog can get stomach bloat from running after a big meal. They can also get bloat if they swallow large leather bones and such. To avoid this happening, I use a tree lopper scissors to cut the rawhide into smaller pieces. Pig ears I buy by the case, much cheaper on Ebay. Although, leathers can be a problem they do not seem to bother any of our Danes, maybe because we feed them constantly. Often a dog will swallow what its got in its mouth to keep another dog or person from taking it away from them. Never trade your dog for what it is holding otherwise it will learn to steal stuff and may swallow it whole thereby causing bloat. When they do have stuff that they shouldn't like a bottle cap pretend you don't notice them and they will shortly drop it. Avoid going after the object right away.

One of our Danes that did get bloat from swallowing a large whatever was saved in time by our vet. The vet claimed that they had also tacked its stomach from my request to avoid this occurring again in the future. Two months later, it happened again. Our Dane got used to chewing on things like bottle caps and such to get us to give it a treat. It was a bad lesson she had learned, and like most of us, we tend to give in. When I tried to get it out of her mouth, she swallowed it. Initially, I thought that if we left her alone she would spit it back out, but she didn't. Anyway, this time the vet claimed that he could not save the dog since it had been too long before we could get it to the vet. Later the next day, when I went to pick up my expired Dane to bury it on my farm, I was met by a couple of young vets. I asked about the stomach tacking and they both looked at me and said that they did not notice any tacking was done. So next time, you all know to ask for photos of the surgery as proof. I paid $1400 for a tacking job that was never done. I did not pursue it further as we were devastated. All our puppies are welcomed to come back home if for any reason you cannot take care of them.

We have two female Danes, however the second one was fixed and had her stomach tacked at the same time. I relayed the story about my other Dane not being tacked to make sure the different vets understood that I was watching. Sure enough, after her surgery, the scare goes much higher up than it normally would for fixing.

Meds

Danes do get leg injures fairly easily. They require plenty of padded bedding, we use large mats laid around, plus we also purchased a single size bed for them. Many of these can be found cheap on Craig's List or from Thrift shops, sofa pillows sewed togther works too. Jane my wife changes their sheets just about daily.
There isn't much a vet can do for your dog should it get a leg injury, other than to try draining the infection and wrapping it up. Save your money. I also had a young Dane, year old, that had her from leg swell past her elbow. The same diagnoses they couldn't do anything and the swelling went down on its own the next day. So don't always panic and save.
When they do get an infection in one of their legs I found Penicillian works just fine. You can buy the Pet Pinicillian on ebay. Survivalist buy them for them selves and they work great. When I had tooth aches from an infection the shit the dentist gave me hardly worked. The Pet penicillian pills within 40 minutes all pain was gone. Trust me, get some before they become outlawed because the pharmacies loose business.
One other great thing about the Penicillian is that it kills the Tick Lyme disease. One pill is all it takes, much cheaper than the crap the vets give you. I cured my female dane, after I noticed she got a leg injury from banging her legs at night against our living room table. The pills also made her more lively, running and jumping, and she must have had the Lyme which I wasn't aware of that the pills cured too.

Baths

Bath your Dane puppy early and praise it before it gets too big and scared of baths. Our Danes love their baths and all dogs should be bathed at least once a month. It helps keep them free of mites or reduces their number. Yes, all dogs and people have microscoptic hair follicle mites, check it out on Google. That's why your hair sometimes itches. I rub alcohol on my hair once a month and it works. The Scientist say not to worry as they do not seem to harm anyone. These bugs exist within your pores, not on the surface which is why they are difficult to get rid of. Alcohol does just that as oppposed to all those rediculous creams and lotions that claim hair restorations. Women have different ph than men which explains why they have more hair. Also women tend to wash their hair more often and do so with much hotter water than men do, hence killing the bugs. By the way, I have a whole video on hair bugs and hair loss on YouTube, later...

We have friends in South Jersey that are supposed to be helping dogs by adopting as many as seven or so, along with ten cats. One is a Dane and they never give any of their dogs baths which is shameful. You can feel it on their fur which feels thick with awful excreations. However, the couple finds time to travel every other month on vacation and pay someone to feed their dogs while they are away having fun. What used to be the dogs whole yard to run in (100 x 40) was reduced to one quarter it size, basically for pooing only. Not true dog savers but dog abusers. Our Danes have the run of five acres. Plus their dogs don't get any of the good food but simply dry dog food. From not getting bones to chew on or leathers their Dane lost one of its teeth from playing tug-a-war with one of the other dogs. It pulled completely out.

One other Great Dane breeder is Brywin I believe, they live just off the Berlin Cross keys road. Not sure of phone number of township in South Jersey. They have champions and don't seem to like me after I purchased two of my Danes from them. You see, they want you to fix your puppy so they can sell theirs for more. They don't like competition.

Avoid signing any contract that prevents you from breeding your Dane, or change if you can later on. The contracts allows them to take back the dog should you breed it. There is nothing in the contract that states for as long as you have the dog.

To avoid anyone trying to sue, FU, these are what I know that works and they are
my opinions. I've raised Danes for 40 plus years.