The story of two Floridians and their foster Great Danes
We aren’t ready for giant dogs right now. Here’s why.
I think I did a fair job at training Roxie. She’s a pretty well-mannered, friendly girl who is well-trained in most aspects. She has a lot of respect for me and will listen to me (unless she sees a cat. Then it’s “bye-bye Roxie”).
But there are some parts of her training that she is seriously lacking in. And my goal is to have our next dogs be “near-perfect” 1 dogs. Completely under control, 100% well-behaved, model dogs. I feel that now that I’m older and I’ve learned a bit from having Roxie, I’m more prepared for this.
One of the things that concerns me is that our new dogs will pick up Roxie’s bad habits even if we try to teach them otherwise. Does anyone have any experience with this (new puppies picking up the old dog’s bad habits)?
My goal before getting our first pup is to train Roxie to be a model dog. Here is what I hope for:
The phrase “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” definitely does not apply to her; she is an incredibly smart dog. I truly believe in her ability to learn new things and I believe in my ability to train her (or at least, learn how to train her). So I think that training Roxie to be “near-perfect” is achievable.
Credit: _tar0_
Imagine this. A small dog jumps on your leg. Their nails dig into your skin and you may get annoyed at them.
Now a Mastiff jumps on your leg. On average, they weigh 185 pounds (120 – 250 pounds). You will fall over. I guarantee it.
A Yorkie pulls on the leash? You can just pull back (although, your dog shouldn’t be pulling on the leash to begin with). A Great Dane pulls on the leash? You will wish you had Draggin’ Jeans on.
Dogs are expensive. Bigger dogs are even more expensive:
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Christian and I are not ready for giant dogs yet, but we are preparing ourselves. We are researching the breeds, we are training Roxie to be an even better dog, and we are saving every penny we earn so we can afford to own two beasts.
Side note, isn’t it amazing that Chihuahuas and Great Danes are from the same species?
[…] I mentioned before, one of my goals is to get Roxie more trained before we get our gentle giants. She has a couple of bad habits that I don’t want her passing down to her little […]
I love how you both are thinking all these things through. I’m enjoying your “learning” journey.