Great Danes

Great Danes - Introduction and History

Courtesy of McEmn Great Danes

The history of the breed runs back to the times of ancient Egyptians and Assyrians. Archeologists have found many artifacts, dating back to Babylonian times, and there are images of Dane-like dogs on ancient Egyptian buildings, dating from 3000 B. C.

There are grounds to believe, that Danes sprung from the Tibetan Mastiff. This dog bore a strong resemblance to the Dane-like dog of Assyrians, who traded the dog to the Greek and the Romans, who used the dog for dogfights and blood sports. Those, in turn, extended trade with the British, and that might have resulted in crossbreeding of the dog with the English Mastiff. Some scientists believe that the breed also contains the Irish Wolfhound in its genetic pool.

Excavations have shown that during the middle ages the dog existed all the way across Europe, both eastern and western. The Dane was used in boar-hunting. Actually, the dog we now refer to as the Great Dane, is considered to have appeared in Germany in the 1600s, when it was fashionable among the nobilities to breed and keep the most dignified and statuesque dogs. These dogs wore gilded fringed collars, which added a great deal to the dog's overall grace.

Surprisingly, Denmark is in no way related to the evolution of the breed and it was by mere accident that the name stuck. When traveling in Denmark, Comte de Buffon, the French naturalist, spotted a more slender species of the Greyhound and surmised the Danish climate affected the dog's appearance. Strangely, the name would stick, and the dogs have been referred to as Great Danes ever since.

The Germans have greatly contributed to the development of the breed. Initially, they imported English Boar Hounds, but later they developed their own stock. In 1880, at a meeting, breeders and judges concluded that the Deutsche Dogge, as they called the dog, had become a separate breed; therefore, its renown was as the German Dog throughout the world. However, the Germans had little success in imposing the name on other countries and, therefore, in the English-speaking world, the dogs are called Great Danes.