The Great Dane is a large breed dog well known in the world, this animal is a large but faithful and good dog, which makes it ideal to adopt as a pet.
The Great Dane is one of the oldest breeds in the world, it is said that it comes from crossings of hunting breeds from Germany, mastiff breeds and running breeds many years ago. Thanks to this we have a dog with a good sense of smell, a fast dog but at the same time a docile dog who likes family life.
The breeding of this breed requires certain knowledge and things to take into account so that your Great Dane grows up happy and without health problems.
If you want to know how to take care of a Great Dane, keep reading as we are going to explain the care and advice to follow step by step and in a simple way to understand and perform.
What do you need to take care of a Great Dane?
- Great Dane dog food.
- Dog-shampoo
- A dog-toy.
- A brush.
- Great love for animals and a lot of patience.
Instructions for caring for a Great Dane
- Food: The Great Dane is a very large dog, for this reason, this breed needs large amounts of food to stay healthy. The ideal is to provide food feed for large breeds, since they have all the necessary nutrients for the dog, but if you want you can accompany their diet with meat, fish, and vegetables such as rice… Although the amount must be somewhat high, we must know that we have to regulate the animal a little because if it eats in excess it will tend to become obese, we must regulate it ourselves because the animal is not capable of regulating itself since it eats by instinct.
- Care: This animal does not need anything special for its care, that is, we must do what is normal with large dog breeds. First of all, brush its hair once a week to prevent it from curling and help eliminate it when it is shedding, secondly, we must bathe the dog every 3 weeks to keep it clean without damaging its protective layer of skin. Always use special shampoo for dogs since they don’t like the smell of normal shampoo and they will do everything possible to roll around somewhere to eliminate it. The papers and taking him there every time you see him sick so that they prescribe a treatment and cure him.
- Interaction: Due to its mastiff origins, the Great Dane is a dog with three contrasting characters. On the one hand, it is a house dog that likes to wander a lot, but it also has its hunter’s instinct that forces it to look for some prey from time to time and its runner’s instinct that makes it need exercise. He takes the dog out three times a day to do his thing, if possible take him to a remote rural place to let him loose and let him run around the field a bit. He also plays with it a bit at home with a dog toy like a tether or an old rag.
- Health: This dog does not usually have serious health problems particularly as other breeds may have, the problem is that, being a large dog breed, it will not live as many years as we would like. Normally, it lives between 8 and 12 years, a fairly low figure compared to the 18 years that some small dog breeds can live, for this reason we must make the most of it with our dog and take care of it properly.
Tips for caring for a Great Dane
- Strong dog: This is a dog that, being so big and good, does not control its strength too much, I mean by this, be careful when playing with children since it bites playfully and could intentionally make it too strong . Also be careful with your furniture as it could unintentionally pull it forcefully and be careful with other dogs as it could jump on them if they bother it too much or harm them by playing because of its enormous strength.
- Training: Due to the point mentioned above, you need to train your Great Dane to be an obedient dog and not mess with them. We recommend going to a professional canine trainer, who, for a small fee, will teach your dog exercises that will reinforce the dog’s obedience towards its owner. We must take it when it is a puppy, since once it grows up, we will no longer be able to tame it properly. Follow the instructions of the trainer and you will get a great animal that will act as a guard dog and companion.
