Why Danehouse?

We were looking for a name that would best describe our family run kennel.

The name had to be as short as possible, and had to fit nicely with a .com extension.

When we looked at our life, the name became obvious. There is almost never a time, day or night, that there in not at least one Dane in our house. Often as many as six, not counting puppies. We built a fourteen by twenty four foot building to house the dogs, when they are not in our house.

We poured concrete floors, with in floor radiant heat, and floor drains. There are two large common pens with separate outdoor runs, and one smaller pen for quarantine. We have plans for expansion in 2008

We like to keep our numbers below ten, as that is as many big dogs that we can love and house and care for and clean up after. As our Danes age, and become retired, we pick the best prospects out of our litters to raise for the breeding program. We also look outside of our bloodlines

We got into raising Danes quite by accident. We bought our first Dane female, and raised her for about two and a half years. We thought that it would be nice to have a litter of puppies. So we looked for a breeder. We encountered many show breeders, that would have nothing to do with us, because we do not show our dogs. We feel that often times, show dogs are bred solely for appearance. This does not take into account for hip problems, blindness, deafness or temperament. We gave up the idea of getting our female bred by anyone else, and bought our own stud. One thing led to another, and we found that we really love to raise puppies. We keep the litter in the house until the puppies move on, so they can get as much human contact as possible.

Raising a litter of ten to twelve Dane puppies is probably more work and expense than most people would be willing to bear. We see that many breeders raise litters outside their homes, and suffer a high mortality rate, as well as a greater risk of developing serious health problems. By keeping the puppies in the house, we are able to keep a close eye on them and prevent any health problems before they happen. An ounce of prevention still beats a pound of cure.

We will not cull undesirable puppies from our litters. Euthanasia is only a last option here. If we get a puppy that has any sort defect or benign health issues, we try to place him or her into homes where they will be well cared for. These pups are given and not sold. Often to homes where there is more love than money available. This is good for both dog and man.

Tammy and I have discussed the feeding of our Danes at length.

After much thought, we have concluded that free choice feeding works the best for our dogs. We have many reasons. First, our dogs never go hungry. We feel that a hungry dog is more likely to over eat when he is fed. While some dogs will not consume enough food to keep fit, when fed at intervals. With our full bowl policy, I am happy to say that we have only one Dane that is slightly over weight, and the rest are just right.

We feel that a full bowl keeps the dogs more social as well. There is a pecking order, and it is respected, and rarely tested at the food dish.

We do not have raised food dishes. These dogs have the ability to consume huge quantities of kibble in short order. We have tried raised dishes, but gave up when we saw no clear benefit.

Puppy nutrition.

As newborn pups first latch on to mom, they get that all important colostrum, that engages the immune system. The pups are tiny, no larger than an average puppy. There is a great risk of mortality when pups are this small, and mom is so big. We used to lose three to four pups each litter. Mom would lay on top of them, and not even know it. We learned that we have to sleep right next to the litter for the first three weeks. After that, we start introducing solid foods. Some pups will eat right away, and others need more time. We also bottle feed any pups that look like they don’t get enough. Bottle feeding has produced some very strong bonds between puppy and human. The pups are a blank slate, and they start to see that humans are the most important thing in life. This tends to cement the dogs loyalty to his human family.

We feed a product sold as Lamb Launcher. It is a powdered milk substitute for lambs. We bottle feed it early on, then in dishes, when puppies learn to drink. This gets messy. You have to dip the pup’s nose into the formula, to get them to drink, as they have not learned to look down for food. They catch on pretty fast. We tend to push the calories for young pups. They have an incredible amount of growing to do. Over one hundred pounds in a single year.

We want to make sure that when they leave here, they are real good at eating.

This takes eight weeks minimum. At six to seven weeks we start introducing more dry food into the diet. This gets them ready for the real world, and stiffens up their poop quite a bit. Thank god.

Poop, that brings us to paper training. We use news paper by the ton. Our pups learn to hit the paper real fast. At eight weeks old, 90% will hit the paper every time. This is a great asset in house breaking your puppy

It helps to keep paper scattered about in a few places, where it’s ok for puppy to go. Remember, to have patience. Great Danes only look older than other dogs. Big on the outside but small on the inside. We recommend that you give puppies all the time the need to get into their head to potty outside. It will click one day, and that will be that. A crate is very use full in house breaking your puppy. Just remember to let them outside often.

We hope that anyone who reads this information finds it helpful.

The information expressed here is our opinion,

We will add to this information as time allows.

Tammy and Tony