Dinah & Mindy, the Danes

dinah.JPG (14076 bytes) Meet Dinah, my first obedience dog. I went to a dog show one day and saw the obedience competition and thought, “I can do that!” So I set about to find a dog. I knew I wanted a large breed and finally narrowed it down to a Great Dane or a Newfoundland. My boss at the time, a veterinarian, convinced me to go for the Great Dane. (I still want a Newf) So after some searching I brought home Dinah. She was a great dog and we went on to a C.D.X. But we were using the old push, pull, shove jerk and yell method of training at the time and by the time we got to Utility she no longer enjoyed obedience and I hated giving corrections so we retired.

Dinah had one litter of puppies - that was a fun summer. We kept one of her children and named her Mindy. Mindy was a special dog. I have never met a more gentle creature. And she was smart! She got a CD with almost no training, but her career ended there when we discovered that she had bone and joint problems. We decided not mindy.JPG (17439 bytes) to risk her comfort by asking her to jump repeatedly. (We spayed both her and Dinah so as not to pass on those physical problems.) One of Mindy's most remarkable traits in obedience was her flip finish! She made all those poodles look like they were standing still. Here is a picture of Mindy learning the finish. That's Dinah sitting by thinking "Thank God, mom doesn't want me to do that!"

Both of the Great Danes have been in doggie heaven for quite a few years now, but they have left very special places in our hearts.