Living with gentle giants!

I would like to first start off by introducing the newest member of my family who just turned a year old and is weighing in right at 130 lbs now

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This is my buddy Hoyt when I first brought him home. Hoyt is a special needs Great Dane as he was born completely deaf due to bad breeding practices. Hoyt is what is refereed to as a double merle Great Dane, meaning that he was born with two copies of the merle gene. Deafness and hearing impairment is caused due to to the lack of hair pigment produced in the inner ear, and generally double merles are born partially or completely white. Although they are born mostly white, they are not albino dogs as some people think. Their white color comes from the doubling up of the merle gene. The merle gene is a bleaching patter not a color. 

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This is my big goofball now, he is one year old and weighs in right around 130 lbs. Great Danes are probably the most loving and compassionate dogs I have ever owned. A lot of people I know are intimidated by the size of Great Danes, but they are called Gentle Giants for a reason. I have two Great Danes and neither of them would ever hurt of fly. Both of my Danes are so good with my kids and all they ever want to do is invade your personal space, because if they are not able to be right on top of you all the time it is the end of the world for them. Contrary to most peoples belief Great Danes are a lap dog! 

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Training a deaf dog takes time and patience because everything is different when trying to teach them. Hoyt is still in the process of training, all his commands have to be done through hand signals or sign language for dogs however you want to look at it. It takes a lot of time for him to learn commands, due to his puppyness and just wanting to run and play all the time. A big factor in helping Hoyt learn was his big sister Molly, with Hoyt not being able to to hear he really relies on his sister to help him and show him what to do. Hoyt basically follows Molly around all day and just mimics whatever she is doing and he is finally really starting to come in to his own and become a more independent dog then he has been in the past. 

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This is my big girl Molly and I plan on doing another post about her, but I mentioned her in this post so I wanted to just make sure everyone knew what she looked like! There is so much to talk about with the amazing dog breed and I look forward to doing more post about these amazing animals. Thanks for reading about my big goof ball! 

- ericstotle