To start off, we have only had him for a few days, but I know if i don’t get my anxiety under control I won’t be able to properly train him. This is mostly just to rant and clear my head a bit, but advice is welcome.
Me and my boyfriend recently adopted a great dane, he is older, about 5-7 years. He was a drop off so we don’t have a lot of information about where he came from or his previous owners. Our apartment was broken into and my boyfriends mom wanted to get a bigger dog, so we went to our local animal shelter to look. The worker brought us to the great dane and my boyfriend was a little skeptical at first because of his age but we decided to get him because they told us he was extremely calm and amazing with other animals. The shelter we got him from didn’t take very good care of him, they gave him one regular sized dog food bowl every day and only let him out for 5 minutes of playtime everyday, so he was bone skinny when we got him. From the time we brought him home, he never tried to jump on me at all, but he isn’t fixed yet so he kept trying to hmp my boyfriend. We have an appointment for his blood work in a few days and if everything is good we can schedule him getting fixed and that should solve his problem with that. He is amazing with cats, we introduced him and our cat we have inside and he wasn’t even phased by him at all. However, my boyfriends mom has a chihuahua and she isn’t fixed, and everytime he smells her on his mom he jumps on her and sniffs her like crazy and tries to hmp. Due to this we have to keep in his cage inside until he is fixed, we let him out progressively in spurts by himself and if she changes clothes he won’t jump on her because he doesn’t smell the other dog. The first day when we let him roam around he did pretty good, he did try to jump up on a few things and sniff where he smelled the dog but other than that he did really good. Sometimes he doesn’t want to get in the crate, but I understand that because he just got out of the shelter. I will say i’m very proud of him because in a little over a day he knows to get in the cage when he comes back inside (he likes the dog bed and he sleeps majority of the day). The only thing that is making me really anxious is that sometimes me and my boyfriend both work all day and eventually his mom will have to take him out herself majority of the day. I’m really worried he is going to jump on her and hurt her, or that even after we get him fixed he will still jump a lot or be too rough on our cat and dog. I’ve had to work most of the days since we got him, and every night it’s like i just worry constantly about him and him accidentally hurting someone. Any great dane owners or just big dogs in general please help!
Me and my boyfriend recently adopted a great dane, he is older, about 5-7 years. He was a drop off so we don’t have a lot of information about where he came from or his previous owners. Our apartment was broken into and my boyfriends mom wanted to get a bigger dog, so we went to our local animal shelter to look. The worker brought us to the great dane and my boyfriend was a little skeptical at first because of his age but we decided to get him because they told us he was extremely calm and amazing with other animals. The shelter we got him from didn’t take very good care of him, they gave him one regular sized dog food bowl every day and only let him out for 5 minutes of playtime everyday, so he was bone skinny when we got him. From the time we brought him home, he never tried to jump on me at all, but he isn’t fixed yet so he kept trying to hmp my boyfriend. We have an appointment for his blood work in a few days and if everything is good we can schedule him getting fixed and that should solve his problem with that. He is amazing with cats, we introduced him and our cat we have inside and he wasn’t even phased by him at all. However, my boyfriends mom has a chihuahua and she isn’t fixed, and everytime he smells her on his mom he jumps on her and sniffs her like crazy and tries to hmp. Due to this we have to keep in his cage inside until he is fixed, we let him out progressively in spurts by himself and if she changes clothes he won’t jump on her because he doesn’t smell the other dog. The first day when we let him roam around he did pretty good, he did try to jump up on a few things and sniff where he smelled the dog but other than that he did really good. Sometimes he doesn’t want to get in the crate, but I understand that because he just got out of the shelter. I will say i’m very proud of him because in a little over a day he knows to get in the cage when he comes back inside (he likes the dog bed and he sleeps majority of the day). The only thing that is making me really anxious is that sometimes me and my boyfriend both work all day and eventually his mom will have to take him out herself majority of the day. I’m really worried he is going to jump on her and hurt her, or that even after we get him fixed he will still jump a lot or be too rough on our cat and dog. I’ve had to work most of the days since we got him, and every night it’s like i just worry constantly about him and him accidentally hurting someone. Any great dane owners or just big dogs in general please help!