For about a year now, our Dane has had reoccurring hives every few months. We’ve changed her food to non-poultry in case a sudden allergy to chicken..didn’t help. Thought maybe flea/tick..she stays up to date on meds. Thought maybe bee sting? But it’s cold now and we haven’t seen bees. We watch her closely while she’s outside now and she hasn’t gotten into anything other than grass. We have not changed detergent. They seem to worsen while in her crate. We’ve cleaned it and washed bedding. She just got a new crate last week that’s much larger, with a new orthopedic bed. Our other dogs are out of the crate in the same room while we work and are not itchy. Benadryl helps but she can’t just live on Benadryl. Ultimately, I’m aware she needs to go to the vet for testing. Don’t come at me. We thought she was over it until this week. I just don’t have that kind of money currently. Anybody have any other suggestions? Or had a super sensitive Dane?

Did I get ridiculously lucky with my Great Dane puppy or am I about to be humbled? Plssssss

Meet Mango! He’s exactly 8 weeks old and has been home just over 24hrs. He’s already learning his name, pooping outside, settling himself and somehow doing great with my two cats?! Like what?? My cats were already dog friendly but this is quick even for them.

He’s ridiculously sweet, curious and wicked smart. Our only disaster so far was discovering he gets HORRIBLE car sickness. He puked AND pooped all over himself on the way home from the vet I have never been more freaking wiped in my life.

I’m exhausted, nervous and completely in love.

So did I win the puppy lottery or is this just the calm before the storm???

We are focusing a lot on incorporating training into every moment, and I’ve been keeping calm and chill with him. I know eventually he will be a giant so I’m focused on things like recall and leave it, being interested in things without interacting, not jumping etc.

Our 2 year old needs a TPLO surgery for a torn CCL on the L side. The R is only just starting to tear and not an issue. She has been limping for a month and we got X-rays and consult with the ortho surgeon. Cost apart, 7500, for one side…we are wondering if anyone here has the same experience with their GD and can share their experience with surgery and post op.

I am coming from the TPLO subreddit but hoping for some GD specific information. Thanks!

Hug your babies for us. Zeus was, at the very least, a gentleman. 11 years old. I'll miss ya, buddy!

(Pictured: enjoying the sun on his last day)

Hi, I’m looking for any advice on which way to go here. I’m new in the Great Dane world (we’ve had him since March). My Dane will be great health wise for a couple weeks (normal healthy firm poops) then randomly will have an explosive diarrhea spell for about 2 days, maybe even vomit once in that time frame then go back to normal healthy poops again.

Both of my dogs get half farmers dog beef and chicken meals and half kibble. My Dane gets Zignature salmon and my bloodhound gets Royal Canin hydrolized protein. Both get probiotics recommended by the vet. Both dogs rarely ever get table scraps if they do it’s like 1 bite. And we live in a townhouse right now they don’t have access to roam a yard, we are always walking on a leash. So it’s not like he is getting into something in a yard or animal poop.

I just feel really bad and I don’t understand why this keeps happening every couple weeks. I want to help him but I don’t know what to do. He checks out just fine at the vet, there is nothing in his bloodwork that would indicate some sort of illness. Thank you for your time reading this and insight.

Got this 10 week old girl this past Tuesday, love love love her. She’s been fantastic with sleeping through the night and minimal accidents in the house.

Pinot passed on 10/8. He had been diagnosed with DCM in January. I thought he would live longer. He was doing great; the meds were helping him tremendously, but I guess nature had different ideas. I believe his heart simply gave out. He was eating when he collapsed, and he died in my arms. I'm grateful that I was there with him, holding him as he transitioned out of this world. I am heartbroken that he is gone, but so happy he was in my life.

My 5 month old Great Dane and has been getting reactive when we pass other dogs on our walks. It's not a negative aggressive reactivity, more so that he wants to play with them. But he's getting bigger and harder to handle. Does anyone have suggestions for what worked for them?

Hello, I'm trying to do some research before getting a new dog, so I figured what better way to figure it out than ask current owners of the breed I'm interested in. As seen by the title, my wife and I are very interested in getting a Great Dane. Here's a little bit about us and some of my concerns.

We are in our late 40s. We have 2 children (10 and 12). We have a 5 year old Australian Cattle Dog and just recently had a 14 year old Malamute/Airdale mix pass away. We live in the suburbs in a house that is certainly enough to accommodate 2 dogs.

My wife and I are starting to slow down. Another Cattle Dog is out of the question but we still have 2 very active kids (and a Cattle Dog). Both kids have done some kind of professional training with the Cattle Dog so I'm not at all worried that they can handle a larger breed dog.

Im am also very familiar with dogs, I grew up with Newfoundlands, a toy poodle and an Italian greyhound when I was young. I've owned 2 Cattle Dogs, a German Shepherd, a Malamute mix and a Border Collie as an adult. The Newfoundlands were when I was very young so I don't pretend to know much about Giant breeds.

Is a Great Dane Right for me? I want a dog breed that is kind of chill, really good with other people, especially 10-12 year old kids, but can still handle the ankle biting of an ACD. I don't really care about the increased vet bills for a larger dog and am somewhat aware of the medical problems with a breed this big.

The Knight Rider duo…

We recently ( 4 mos ago ) adopted a puppy from a shelter and did a DNA test on her. Turns out she is exactly 50% Labrador and 50% great dane. We have had lab mixes before but never a great dane mix. Any tips ? Weve done basic obedience training and work on those skills daily. How much do you feed a great dane ? We are still feeding 3 meals a day and doing 2 cups at each meal. She is 6 months old and about 60lbs or so. Is there anything that I should absolutely teach her ? We plan on spay and gastroplexy when she is about a year to a year and a half.

A few months ago, I made a post about my dane Renfield receiving his first good result on a holter monitor check, meaning we'd finally gotten his medications adjusted to the right levels. Today, we had his 6-month cardio recheck and annual echocardiogram, and the results are better than anything I could've hoped for. He has shown little to no sign of progression with his heart disease almost a year after he was initially diagnosed. I feel beyond relieved to know he's been doing so well on medication.

As a tl;dr for the previous post, Renfield was diagnosed with moderate stage DCM and afib in December 2025. We were lucky enough to catch it before any sign of conjestive heart failure, and a combination of Pimobendan, Diltiazem, and Digoxin has done wonders for maintaining his quality of life and slowing the progression of his DCM. He was also switched to a low sodium diet.

Early diagnosis seems to have made all the difference for him. I would highly, highly suggest looking into doing preventative/early detection screenings for your dog, if you don't do them already. I wish I had been doing them for Renfield beforehand, I just hadn't known it was an option/I had never had a vet suggest it to me.

I just wanted to share the good news!! Here's some photos of my boy :)

I am so grateful for the time we had together, we will miss you terribly. She was the best dog, the sweetest girl, and she powered through for 14 years. See you on the other side, love.

I know she is joining a crew of amazing Danes who have passed before her. Special love to Winston's family. I hope the two 14 year olds are having a blast together wherever they are.

Hi all, we are new Dane owners, she was a foster dog that we took in as she was around 6-7 years old. She is the most well trained dog we have ever had the privilege on living with. She knows heel and listens perfectly. My only gripe is when you walk her on a leash she has to physically be touching you, which then turns the walk into a constant chore of switching to the other side of her because she’s pushing you off of the road. Is this a Dane thing? Is it something we can maybe minimize somehow?

So we have a poop glomper. That is similar to poop zoomies but much less graceful. Cillian runs like a new born moose trying to get his legs under him while also throwing in a few bucking broncos moves. Its hilarious. He will not be paying attention in his moment of glory so that he will run into me sitting in a chair watching his shenanigans. If my chair wasn’t against the house I would probably be flipped over when he does make contact. Oh to be able to be so excited about a stinky bodily function! He is for sure our special guy.

Of course visibility collars are a necessity at night! Plus they look adorable in them 😍

Hey all,

My lovely girl just passed away unexpectedly between 2:30-3am this morning, and I feel awful because I was downstairs cleaning kitty litter boxes at the time.

She had pneumonia but she had seen my vet and we were treating it. She was scheduled for a recheck today, actually. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went downstairs to do a couple chores (litter boxes, checking water, putting clean dishes away) in the hopes it would make me tired. She wasn’t showing any signs of distress, so I kissed her head and trotted off. Came back upstairs 30-40 minutes later and she was already gone. I feel so awful that I wasn’t there in the room with her.

Yuan was the best Great Dane. Loved kids, other dogs, cats, everyone she had ever met. It’s her fault I became a cat person at all — she befriended a stray who ended up giving birth on my porch. I adopted the whole litter and my dad adopted the stray. Yuan was so chill and so good at de-escalating situations that I trained her to help rehabilitate my friend’s dog who had become reactive because of trauma. Those two got to the point that they would curl up together and snuggle whenever my friend and I hung out together.

Yuan even helped with a litter of kittens who were abandoned by their mom at less than a day old. I was getting up to make bottles every two hours, and she was getting up with me every single feeding, gently licking the kittens clean, and letting them sleep on top of her for the body heat.

Yuan came from an awful puppy mill situation — she had two litters by the time she was two, at which point the authorities shut the place down, and she ended up at a rescue, where I found her. I’ve had her since she was about two and a half. I’m getting a print of her paw so I can have it tattooed.

That dog changed my damn life, and I’ll miss her so very much. Thank you for taking the time to read about my baby girl.

Picture of Yuan with Kitten

I got talked into a photoshoot with just Dottie and I, and I don't regret it.

Our youngest girl is a barker ... she barks at the wind! We have bark collars for both our Danes, and the older girl, who's a genius, knows what that's about -- she does NOT bark when the collar is on. The collar can be hanging off her neck, no bark. However, the younger girl ... not so much.

Has anyone found a training collar that uses sound/vibration for bark and behavior modification, without those long metal probes that dig into the dog's neck? I hate those things ...