Interested in a Dane puppy? Here's the most important information you can get:
Danes are a unique, demanding breed. They're fabulous in many families but they present challenges, most related to their enormous size, that are simply too much for many others.
Don't get a Dane puppy if:
1) You don't like your kids, your neighbor kids, your spouse, and your visitors getting knocked over, stepped on, hit with an enormous tail, slobbered over, chewed on, and otherwise abused. Danes hit 100 lbs before they even hit teenagerhood, so completely normal puppy behavior is major stuff. Calm, consistent training turns these unruly babies into considerate, lovely adults, but-- especially if you have kids--you will need a large measure of patience.
2) You must maintain a gorgeous house or lawn. Adult Danes generally have good manners, but young adults and puppies eat couches (often when you're still sitting on them!), destroy coffee tables, try to take edible items from the very top cupboard (dragging the cupboard down with them), and make many lovely abstract craters and rock gardens in your lawn. It's not that they're all that destructive--it's just normal puppy stuff. But when your "normal" puppy is 32 inches high and 110 lbs at eight months, one swipe of a paw can dramatically rearrange your tulip bed--or your regular bed!
3) You will balk at enormous dog-related bills. Danes as a breed are very unhealthy--we try like the dickens to breed as close to an ideal pedigree as we can, but we know that there are no guarantees. And when even routine care is two or three times that of a medium-sized dog (for anesthesia, antibiotics, etc.), things really add up. Just to give you an idea, a typical Dane spay is $400-600 in this area. Bloat surgery will run you $1500 or more. I've never walked out of a vet office owing less than $150, even just after the normal annual exam. They are also expensive to maintain well. When your Lovey Lum Lums looks up from the sixth $80 dog bed he's destroying, you'll know what I mean.
4) You are unwilling to take advice and obey your breeder. Your breeder has got to be your source of counsel, a shoulder to cry on, and (hopefully) a good friend for the next ten or twelve years. She has spent years and years obsessing over this breed, discussing every facet of health and temperament and training and breeding with many other breeders. She is likely to know more than your vet, often more than your trainer, and definitely more than your cousin Jarvis about this breed. By far the greatest number of unsuccessful puppy placements are because the owner did not let the breeder know about the problems when they were still minor and/or did not follow the advice of the breeder when it was given. That's why it's so vital to make a good match with a breeder--this is a relationship, not just a purchase.
5) You are not absolutely confident of the temperament, health, and care given to that puppy. We show breeders get a little nutty about perfect heads, toplines, and expressions, but really what you are going to care about is temperament and health. Temperament is your responsibility once you leave with the puppy, but it's just plain foolish to not start with the best possible beginning. That means a friendly, healthy mom, puppies raised IN THE HOUSE, and a breeder who cares about temperament as much as you do. Health is always going to be an issue in this breed, but give yourself a head start by going to a breeder who health-tests all his or her breeding animals, who knows about diet and can give you advice, and who has longevity records on all of the dogs in the pedigree for at least three generations. There's no such thing as a perfectly healthy pedigree, so a breeder who knows what he or she is dealing with, and is willing to fully disclose any problems in the pedigree, is your best bet.
We would also say that a show breeder is generally best equipped to sell you a good puppy--that's because show breeders are subject to a peer-review process. We have to present our dogs to our community and, since we keep the dogs we breed, we're shooting ourselves in the feet if we don't do it well. There's a lot of internal pressure to keep our contracts current, to never breed poorly temperamented animals, and to health test as well. A show breeder will also sell you a puppy that looks like a Great Dane--sounds simple, but a breed this extreme goes wonky in just a couple of generations if you don't keep the standard very much in mind. If you want a sound dog whose body will have the best chance of lasting as long as his mind does, a show breeder is the place to go.
