Great Dane Breeder; Bing the Great Dane
The Great Dane Club of Des Moines just had our annual back-to-back Specialties this past Friday. We had a wonderful entry – 65 Danes. Nice 5 pointer in bitches! Kizzy went Reserve Winners Bitch at the afternoon show, under judge Jane Treiber.
The after-show dinner was great fun as well! I’ve so many great friends through dogs!!
Kizzy picked up a 4 point major this weekend in MN! Woo-hoo!!
Guinness, the missing Corgi, has been caught and reunited with his owners!!!
We hadn’t had any Guinness sightings since we first saw him last Friday night. Then, yesterday my mother-in-law was at our place and spotted him in our backyard. We moved the live trap to the backyard and baited it with tripe (mmm) last night and were rewarded with a little Corgi guy in it this morning! I was so excited at 6AM upon spotting him in the trap.
We carried him inside the live trap into the basement before attempting to get him out. Weren’t taking any chances. He was actually a pretty calm little guy. In surprisingly good health after being on his own for almost two weeks. He went happily into a Dane crate and scarfed up a bowl of his food. Gave him a can of tripe a couple hours later, which he quickly gobbled up. Then he seemed pretty content to curl up with his owner’s shirt and wait in the crate.
Called his owners at 6:30 and they were on the road by 7ish, here by a little after noon. Not a lot of dry eyes during the reunion. 🙂
Some images from this morning:
We had a sad situation here in my area. A family traveling through on the interstate were in a car accident (see Newton Daily News article) a week ago today. They were traveling with their two Corgis. One was killed in the accident 🙁 and the other escaped in the confusion.
This was a week ago today and the dog has remained missing (second Newton Daily News article). There haven’t been any reliable sightings of the dog.
Until tonight. We spotted him in our yard a couple of hours ago! We live right off the interstate where the accident happened and don’t have any Corgis in our area, so fairly positive that we saw the dog in question.
I talked to his owners on the phone and needless to say, they are very excited. Unfortunately, the dog is super shy and has now been loose for an entire week…making him even more skittish. He took off when I attempted to call him and I didn’t pursue for fear of driving him out of the area.
The owners are working with someone here in the Midwest that specializes and tracking and catching dogs in these type of situations. I spent some time on the phone with this person, getting tips of what we could do to help.
My initial thought was to put out a lot of food, to keep him here. However, she cautioned that we want to keep him hungry, so not to put out too much. Did some cooked hamburger and spread the juice out over the grass and tree leaves, to make the area smell stronger. We also set a live trap, although it’s doubtful he can be caught in one.
Some Corgi friends are coming out to our acreage tomorrow with one of their Corgis – who is in season. We’re going to put her on a long line and walk her around the area, hoping she might draw him out.
Sounds like the owners are driving back (they’re several hours away in IL) here tomorrow.
Please cross your fingers that this boy can be reunited with his family very soon!!
Update: Check out our happy ending!
Just got home from a fun weekend in Waukesha, Wisconsin. We didn’t come home with any points, but we had a great time and the dogs all did great showing. Kizzy won a very nice Bred-By-Exhibitor class both Friday and Saturday, placing second today to Nancy Parker’s lovely Piper, who went RWB. Bree won her class all three days.
The show was lots of fun. It was great to catch up with friends and see some wonderful Danes!
Yesterday Tiana and I drove into Milwaukee and snapped a few shots of the dogs at various locations around Lake Michigan.
A few shots from the hotel room…
A few additional pics available in this gallery.
Some shots of the girls from this weekend.
Got the official certificates in the mail last week and OFA’s database is updated now as well. Kizzy’s elbows & patellas looked great and she was rated “Good” for her hips. Here is the link to her results – http://www.offa.org/display.html?appnum=1419704#animal . YAY! Next we’ll be looking for a cardiac clinic as well has do her thyroid testing.
Skyy also recently passed an updated CERF (eyes) exam with great results…at SIX! Another YAY!
Unfortunately, the photographer messed up and set the placard as RWB, instead of Winners/Best of Opposite.
The first day’s picture didn’t turn out all that well, but I like the second day’s picture (pictured first below)..
Horrible stack job by me!
Kizzy picked up two more points, going Winners Bitch and Best of Opposite both days in Marshalltown. Picture hopefully coming soon!
Kizzy also had her x-rays done for hips, elbows and patellas. Everything looked great on the x-rays, so now we’re just waiting for the OFA expert review. I will post link to her OFA results as soon as they are available.
Great Danes have four recommended health tests prior to the decision to breed them – hips, thyroid, cardiac and eyes. A breeder might choose to do additional tests as well.
These health tests go beyond a simple “well dog” check-up at the vet. While a dog might not exhibit any signs of a health issue, they can still pass problems to offspring. They might be a carrier of the problem; might not be exhibiting symptoms yet; or even have a non-symptomatic level of the problem (and paired with the wrong breeding mates, the puppies could then be symptomatic).
Health tests aren’t about getting the best rating, they’re about knowing what potential issues your dog may pass on to offspring and how to make smart breeding choices. The more information a breeder has – on the breeding candidate and their relatives – the more informed their breeding decisions.
For hips, a vet takes an x-ray and then the x-rays are submitted to OFA, PennHip, or OVC. I am only familiar with OFA, but will say that putting the dog under anesthesia is not required for the x-rays. I spent around $250 for Kizzy’s x-rays and OFA submission (this included all the costs for the hips, elbows and patellas).
For thyroid testing, any vet can draw the blood sample and then it is sent to an OFA approved lab for testing.
For cardiac testing, a board certified cardiac specialist is required. This screening can not tell you if the dog will ever come down with a heart problem, but it can detect current problems, big and small.
For eyes, again a specialist is required. A board certified veterinary ophthalmologist examines the dog’s eyes for any eye issues (e.g. cataracts, eye lid issues, etc.) and the results are sent into CERF, whose database is linked with OFA. For breeding dogs, eye CERFs should be repeated as the dog ages. I just had Skyy’s CERF done again and spent $30 on the exam an additional $8 for CERF submission.
Once a Great Dane has these four tests completed and the results are public, the dog earns a CHIC number. A dog does not have to “pass” these tests in order to receive a CHIC number, however the owner has to be willing to share good and bad testing results.
A CHIC number is not necessarily indicative of good health, rather the owner’s support of the open health database, which benefits our breed. By allowing the information to be publicly available, owners of related dogs gain perspective when making their breeding choices. Having a health issue arise should not be a dirty little secret – only by sharing the test results can the breed move forward.
Always verify any claims of health testing – OFA’s online database – before purchasing a puppy.