Gibson...the worlds tallest dog

[knny187]

http://gibsondog.com/index.php

[emn1964]

I can't imagine having to clean up after that dog.  Gorgeous animal though!

[knny187]

It's a horse of course

[~flower~]

That's a big boy!!  

[calmus]

That's what happens when you mess with nature.

[knny187]

I can't imagine having to clean up after that dog.  Gorgeous animal though!

I would hate to feed that thing

[Vet]

I would hate to feed that thing

I'll bet you porportional to its size, it doesn't eat that much.   I know the dogo I've got--at 135 or so lbs doesn't eat as much food in a day as the 55 lb pit.   Big dogs like that tend to not burn off "nervous" energy like smaller dogs. 


I'd take a dog that size in a heartbeat.  The bigger the better as long as their joints aren't all screwed up and they aren't painful.  It'd be funny as hell to see my 300+ lb butt in my ford ranger with dog that size.  I don't think we'd fit. 

[webcake]

So would this dog be even more prone to hip dsyplasia. I may be wrong, but arent Great Danes prone to hip problems? Seems like a dog this big could have trouble..

[~flower~]

Great Danes are prone to joint problems in general but heart problems are the big killer along with osteosarcoma (bone cancer).  The bigger the dog, the shorter the life span.   

 My Emmett is going to be 7 in November, I hope to get to 9 plus years, seems like 7-9 is the usual and 11 or more is getting lucky. 

 Vet is right about the food, not that they can't eat!!  But Emmett eats roughly 4-5pounds a day and he will regulate himself and not finish or skip a meal at times.  He weighs about 150-160, and my female Great Dane who is 20pounds overweight at 140 eats about 2-3# a day and she can pack on the weight easy!!   She will drop 20# once the weather is nice and we are taking are daily walks.   

  I do know some people who's Danes eat about 8# a day, so it depends on the dog and the age, metabolism and exercise.     My dane mix never seems to fluctuate weight at around 85# and I could feed her the same amount as my 140# girl. 

[emn1964]

Great Danes are prone to joint problems in general but heart problems are the big killer along with osteosarcoma (bone cancer).  The bigger the dog, the shorter the life span.   

 My Emmett is going to be 7 in November, I hope to get to 9 plus years, seems like 7-9 is the usual and 11 or more is getting lucky. 

 Vet is right about the food, not that they can't eat!!  But Emmett eats roughly 4-5pounds a day and he will regulate himself and not finish or skip a meal at times.  He weighs about 150-160, and my female Great Dane who is 20pounds overweight at 140 eats about 2-3# a day and she can pack on the weight easy!!   She will drop 20# once the weather is nice and we are taking are daily walks.   

  I do know some people who's Danes eat about 8# a day, so it depends on the dog and the age, metabolism and exercise.     My dane mix never seems to fluctuate weight at around 85# and I could feed her the same amount as my 140# girl. 

Temperment wise, how are these dogs?  People friendly, dog friendly, etc?

[knny187]

So would this dog be even more prone to hip dsyplasia. I may be wrong, but arent Great Danes prone to hip problems? Seems like a dog this big could have trouble..

I pulled this off of OFA's (Orthapedic Foundation for Animals) site.

Statistical data on a Great Dane compared to 2 other breeds.  The reason I threw the German Sheperd up is because most people associate the German Sheperd as being very prone to Hip Dysplasia.  But, take a look at the Rottweiler & you'll see the stats are worse in both hips & elbows.  I personally think this has come from years of poor breeding of a popular breed.  These stats were gathered from 1974-2007.  I am curious to see what the stats would be from just the last 5 years.  So to answer the question are Dane's prone to hip, elbow, or joint issues ...sure.  But nothing hardly compared to some other popular breeds.  Hell, the Rottweiler was rank #2 as being the worst with elbows.  This is sort of the thing I was never aware of until we had to bring in our dog for his prelims.  I didn't realize this breed has become so messed up.  One other thing...sure Dane's may be prone to heart problems.  But one thing I can say about people that I know who owns Danes is that they are very proactive people.  I would bet these stats may reflect a good percent of heart tests, but the owners may have a lot to contribute to the better results by taking proactive measures early in the dogs life.

GREAT DANE
Registry Rank                 Evaluations   Percent     Abnormal      Percent Normal
BAER HEARING TEST            N/A               1               0.0              100.0
CARDIAC                         39               1712          0.2              98.9
ELBOW                             51               1265          4.1              95.8
HIPS                               77               10406          12.0             86.4
PATELLA                         N/A               49              2.0              98.0
THYROID                         25               1360           6.0             78.0

GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG
Registry   Rank                 Evaluations   Percent       Abnormal     Percent Normal
BAER HEARING TEST          N/A               13              0.0              100.0
CARDIAC                           34               375              0.3              99.7
ELBOW                               8              26464          19.4              80.4
HIPS                                38               92736           19.1              78.9
LEGG-CALVE-PERTHES          N/A               2              0.0               100.0
PATELLA                           67                 95              1.1               98.9
THYROID                          48                364              3.0               90.4   

ROTTWEILER
Registry   Rank                Evaluations   Percent       Abnormal     Percent Normal
BAER HEARING TEST         N/A               2               0.0             100.0
CARDIAC                         36                3227          0.3             99.3
ELBOW                            2                 10956          40.8           58.7
HIPS                              29                87814        20.4           77.7
LEGG-CALVE-PERTHES      N/A               2                0.0            100.0
PATELLA                        58                  237              1.7            98.3
THYROID                       44                  542              3.3            82.5

[~flower~]

Temperment wise, how are these dogs?  People friendly, dog friendly, etc?

Mine are VERY friendly.  Both people and dogs.  They may need to warm up before accepting a new dog, but they aren't dog aggressive.

  I have heard of Danes that are not friendly, mainly to other dogs but in some cases very protective of their family so not good with strangers, so like in any breed it depends on the individual dog, but generally I think Danes are a friendly breed.   

[~flower~]

  But one thing I can say about people that I know who owns Danes is that they are very proactive people.  I would bet these stats may reflect a good percent of heart tests, but the owners may have a lot to contribute to the better results by taking proactive measures early in the dogs life.

 Emmett in particular because I know he has a slight murmur I work his diet around known heart supportive foods, and he gets CoQ10 daily.   The others in turn are on basically the same diet minus the additional CoQ10, and where Emmett gets a chicken foot daily (because of his knee), the other big dogs get them about every other day (Tad gets a portion of one).    Chicken feet are naturally a great source of chondroiton (sp) and glucosamine (sp) although I haven't been able to find actual numbers to verify that.    And they are "teh crunchy" so they all like them.         He (Emmett) also gets daily joint sups but I have noticed a difference since making chicken feet a daily item.  I have heard from a shepard owner that she noticed a difference in one of her dogs after adding them as a regular item.  The dog's pain seemed to lessen greatly and was much more active.

[Vet]

Great Danes are prone to joint problems in general but heart problems are the big killer along with osteosarcoma (bone cancer).  The bigger the dog, the shorter the life span.   

 My Emmett is going to be 7 in November, I hope to get to 9 plus years, seems like 7-9 is the usual and 11 or more is getting lucky. 

 Vet is right about the food, not that they can't eat!!  But Emmett eats roughly 4-5pounds a day and he will regulate himself and not finish or skip a meal at times.  He weighs about 150-160, and my female Great Dane who is 20pounds overweight at 140 eats about 2-3# a day and she can pack on the weight easy!!   She will drop 20# once the weather is nice and we are taking are daily walks.   

  I do know some people who's Danes eat about 8# a day, so it depends on the dog and the age, metabolism and exercise.     My dane mix never seems to fluctuate weight at around 85# and I could feed her the same amount as my 140# girl. 

5-8 lbs a day?  WOW.  that seems like alot of food to me.   A whole lot of food. 

[~flower~]

5-8 lbs a day?  WOW.  that seems like alot of food to me.   A whole lot of food. 

  I have had people tell me that (this is raw).  I wondered if I was starving Emmett with his 4# a day but he is a good weight so I think he is fine.   

   Growing Danes are fed more as puppies usually than they will be fed as adults, puppies you go by a general 10% of bodyweight rule, adults 2-3%, but at 6mo you can have a 100# Dane puppy!!!   If I remember correctly, I think Emmett under a year of age I was feeding around 5-6# or so a day.   But that tapered off as he got older till where we are now at around 4# a day. 

  Some people with Danes that I know are lucky enough to have acres for them to run in, so conceivably they could be getting a lot more exercise and able to consume and burn off more food.   
       

[ripitupbaby]

Our favorite dane Harley made it to just under 10 years old by like 2 months. 
He didn't eat nearly as much as people would think...he ate regular dry dog food, maybe like 3-4 pounds a day.  One big bowl in the morning that he would leave a little leftover for a snack at night.  And that's it.  I would go through one of those 40 pound bags about once every 2 weeks.  He was a pretty lazy dog though. 

Harley never had any heart problems.  He was left intact (until we ran into a pretty major problem at 7 years old and had to have him castrated) and had prostate issues his whole life...enlarged prostate which caused bladder problems and seemingly non-stop UTIs.

But other than that, he was in great health and didn't really die of anything specific.  He was just SO big (about 175 pounds) and tall that he just got old and tired.  He started to have a really hard time getting up from the floor, and then he started falling alot (his back legs would give out).  We decided that the day he fell down and couldn't get back up would be the day that we had to put him down.  Unfortunately, that day was my 31st birthday.   

Great danes are the best dogs in the world.  Their temperment is outstanding for their size.  Harley was a bit aggressive with other dogs, but not too bad, and NEVER with a person or child.  My in-laws had one dane that we had to put down because he was aggressive with everyone except us.  I've never seen another dane like that, and I've been around a lot of danes.

[w8m8]

WoW    he's a great big dane 

handsome too

[calmus]

My brother-in-law's second cousin had a dane that was taller than Gibson.  However, she was publicity-shy and so she didn't let the dog become a big star. 

[MisterMagoo]

gibson wishes he could be half the dog the mighty Zorba was.