Bet Your Dog Doesn’t Do This

It’s National Puppy Day and I have a lot of thoughts about my own dog on the day of celebrating our canine companions.

My dog, Ghost, is a true pain in the ass. He is an almost 3 year old merlequin Great Dane with a personality all his own.

We got Ghost when he was 8 weeks old from a young lady who had a hard time letting him go and told us he had “hearing issues and/or was deaf”, which is not uncommon in Merlequins of any breed. He needed to be with someone who had Great Dane experience and I wasn’t going to guised to treat him any differently than a hearing dog because of his special needs.

The first Dane fit we experienced was when my husband left to outside. I thought someone’s car alarm was going off the way this big little puppy was screaming at the top of his lungs. We were mortified that a dog, a puppy, could sound like that and so we did what any normal family would do - we laughed our asses off about it.

He grew.

In typical Great Dane fashion, his favorite place to be is the couch. When he was little and realized he was too small to get on it, he again made his car alarm sound and demanded to be put on the couch. He won this battle for a long time. He would scream, someone would pick him up and put him on the couch. This went on for months.

He grew more.

When he was big enough to put himself on the couch, which is now his couch, we finally felt safe from the car alarm screeching.

Ghost is the most high strung Dane I’ve ever owned in 20 years with the breed. He opens doors, gets into whatever he wants, hates most men, barks at nothing and likes to do this in the middle of the night and gets his feelings hurt that the cat doesn’t want to play with him. I simply, do not understand this complicated couch potato but I love this dog with all my heart.

Ring or knock on the door and that car alarm scream is still there but now is proceeded with a huge giant breed bark.

He is loyal, he is protective, he adores the Staffie next door and he is ours. I wouldn’t trade him on National Puppy Day or any day. Here’s to you, Ghost - you complete our family. Thank you, boy.