Great Danes. Rachel Cawley
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The Birth of the Breed
It should be stated up front that despite its name, the Great Dane did not originate in Denmark. The Great Dane did not immediately appear as the breed seen today. It was created by blending several existing breeds. And even after the breed had begun to be identified, it took some time before people could settle on a name. England and Germany struggled for years to claim the breed for themselves by attempting to name it after their country.
The Great Dane has been recognized as a breed for more than 400 years. The early Great Danes were called Boarhounds for the job they performed: hunting boars. A boar, being strong and swift, demanded a superior dog to hunt it. Records of the time show these early Great Danes to be quite effective.
As the boar population began to fall, the hounds began a new life. By the sixteenth century the English dubbed the breed English Dogges. These large dogs were bred for image and protection. In the late 1600s a German nobleman bred large numbers of the dogs, prizing the biggest and most attractive. These pampered dogs, often adorned with ornate collars, were kept inside homes and called Kammerhunde, literally meaning “chamber dogs.”
French naturalist Comte de Buffon (1749–1788) gave the breed the name it has today. Buffon authored a massive (more than 35 volumes) natural-history encyclopedia, Historie Naturalle. While visiting Denmark, he came across a sleeker version of the Boarhound. Thinking it a Greyhound, the author said the Danish climate caused the Greyhound to become a Grand Danois, a Great Danish Dog. The name has remained despite attempts to rename the breed.
Hunting Records
In 1563, more than 2,500 boars were hunted down. The number may be less impressive if one considers the ratio of boars to hounds. One hunter, Duke Henry of Braunschweig, showed up at a hunt in 1592 with 600 male Boarhounds!
The Name Game
More than the average breed, the Great Dane has gone through a variety of names. In the 1800s, the dog’s name became a point of contention between England and Germany. The first German dog show (1863) featured two similar breeds: the Dannish Doggen and the Ulmer Doggen. By 1876 the judges began to refuse to allow both names, saying that the dogs were the same breed and only the Deutsche Dogge name was to be used. At the 1879 Hanover show it was decided that the lighter-weight dogs would be Ulmer Doggen and the heavier-weight dogs would be Danish Dogs. More confusing was that Brindle Great Danes were called Hatzruden (Wolf Dogs)!
The 1880 publication of Sydenham Edward’s encyclopedia Cynographia Britannica (an encyclopedia of British dog breeds) lists the “Great Danish Dog” with an illustration. It describes the dog as being a cross between Greyhounds and Mastiffs with usually cropped ears. The text even mentions “a beautiful variety called the Harlequin Dane.”
That same year, a meeting of German breeders and judges agreed that the breed developed in Germany was substantially different from the English Mastiffs. The group insisted the name be changed to Deutsch Dogge (German Dog), forbade all other names, and founded the Deutshe Doggen Club of Germany.
FYI: A Great Dane by Any Other Name …
Here are the names for Great Danes in a few international tongues.
• Great Dane (English-speaking world and Denmark)
• Gran Danés (Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world, including South America)
• Grand Danois (French-speaking world, Scandinavia in the twentieth century)
• Tanskandoggi (Finland)
• Danubius Dog (Hungary)
• Danua cinsi kopek or Grand Danua (Turkey)
• Danische Dogge or Grosse Danische Yagd Hund (German-speaking world until 1888–1889)
A British club for the breed was formed in 1883. The breed was previously shown as German Boarhounds, but it was decided to name the club the Great Dane Club and include all the name variations, including Boarhounds, Tiger Mastiffs, and German Mastiffs. The name change prompted Prince Solins of Prussia to demand that the British club retain the dog’s national origin and call it the Great German Dogge Club. The British ignored the request and kept the Great Dane name.
In 1884, English shows began listing the dog as the Great Dane. The club broke with the rest of the world when it ceased cropping the ears in 1894. King Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, requested that all cropping be stopped. (Since then, many other countries have outlawed the practice of cropping, calling it everything from barbaric to unnecessary surgery.)
The year 1887 found the breed being recognized by the American Kennel Club. In 1889, the Great Dane Club of America (until then the breed was called the German Mastiff) was founded in Chicago. In 1891, the Great Dane Club of Germany accepted an official description or standard for the breed.
The Great Dane Hall of Fame
(some Danes of Fame—in no particular order)
Keystone Teddy Teddy was one of the first stars of Hollywood, appearing in films years before Rin Tin Tin. He was a natural-eared, lightly marked Brindle Great Dane featured in a variety of Mack Sennett’s Keystone Films. Appearing in shorts as early as 1917, he earned $35 per week. When Teddy began working in features, he became one of Sennett’s highest-paid actors, earning $350 per week. Sometimes referred to as Teddy the Wonder Dog, he retired from films in 1923.
Fridge Cropped Fawn Great Dane “Fridge,” aka Best in Show (BIS), Best in Specialty Show (BISS), Best in Futurity (BIF), Champion (CH) Von Shrado’s I’m a Knock Out was the number one Great Dane in 1990 and 1992. He also holds the Best of Breed record, with 404 Best of Breed awards. Fridge has been the only Great Dane of the American Kennel Club record to be number one as a veteran (a Great Dane six years of age or older) and in the top 20 for six years. Fridge qualified for the Great Dane Club of America’s Hall of Fame twice for siring 30 or more American Kennel Club Champions and for having won 10 Best in Shows. Often breeder-owner handled, Fridge was Great Dane Club of America’s Futurity winner in 1987. (Futurity is a show for puppies that are entered by their breeders when the pups are still in the womb. See the Great Dane Club of America’s website for more information.)
Giant George Giant George (2005–), a natural-eared Blue Great Dane, was awarded two titles from the Guinness Book of World Records in 2010: Tallest Living Dog and Tallest Dog Ever. He measures 43 inches at the shoulder, and weighs 245 pounds. On the way to one of his first official appearances as the record holder, George took up a row of three seats on an airplane.
Scooby-Doo Debuting September 13,1969, Scooby-Doo is one of the longest-running cartoon characters from the Hanna-Barbera studio. Sort of resembling a Chocolate Merle, Scooby was named by animation legend Joe Barbera based on Frank Sinatra singing “Scooby-dooby-doo” in “Strangers in the Night.” Scooby’s original design was by Iwao Takamoto, who said he wanted to make Scooby the opposite of the breed standard, so Scooby is not a typical Great Dane in appearance. Since his debut, Scooby has almost never been off the TV screen. He has moved into other media via a series of long-running direct-to-video animated features and several live-action films (where Scooby is done in CGI, computer-generated imagery).
The First U.S. Great Dane
The Great Dane was not fully recognized in the United States until the