Cowboy

We got Cowboy in the Spring of 2003. He was a tubby and timid little Great Dane puppy that was afraid of everything! He weighed close to 50 lbs and was about 2 feet tall before he would go down stairs! But he was so gentle. He always just wants to be by his people. When he was a puppy, he would follow me around the house, and fall asleep on my feet where ever I was sitting. Now that he's grown, he'll come sit by the couch (he's not allowed on the furniture) and lay his head in my lap.

Great Danes are very intelligent, and Cowboy is particularly bright. When he was about two months old I had him in the bedroom with me, but he wanted to go out and play. There was a Hawaiian Lei hung on the door knob, and Cowboy figured out that if he got both sides of the lei in his teeth and pulled in just the right way, he could open the door! It was very entertaining watching him figure this out.

Cowboy is also very sensitive, and is known to throw "tantrums" if he feels unjustly persecuted. One day he was scolded for chewing something up, and he went back to his bed, and lay down, and refused to get up, or wag his tail for the rest of the day, even when Wyatt and I tried to coo him to come play.

But his grudges don't last forever. All he ever wants is to be by his people, and run in the park. He's not as athletic as Scout, and when we play fetch, Scout will get the ball nine times out of ten. But every once in a while we hold Scout back, so Cowboy has a chance. And when he gets it, he's so very proud of himself. He always does two victory laps around the baseball field, prancing like a young puppy.

Cowboy, I think, was uniquely easy to train. Part of this was probably due to the fact that we got him in the late spring, and it was warm outside, so we could spend lots of time with him outside. He took about three weeks to house train and the same amount of time to shake, sit, lay down, rollover, and walk on a leash.

Both Cowboy and Scout are very bright and have learned other commands not so much through training, but just by consistent use: "Go lay down," "Go outside," "Go Downstairs," "Want to go to the Park?" etc. Cowboy and Scout both have a fairly concrete understanding of anything we're talking about when we're talking to them.

They are also very gentle. They especially love kids because kids tend to have enough energy to play with them indefinatley! I have a friend who brings her 4 year old and 14 month old over to play, and they will go out in the back yard to play with the dogs. Both Cowboy and Scout are very careful to not knock a child over. It's especially cute because the 14 month old is just the right height for Cowboy to bend his head down and smell the top of the baby's head!